Chapter Fifty – A Fall Into Love and Halloween Happiness

Gwendolyn had been mad when she went to bed on Saturday night; she was still mad when she woke after too-little sleep; and she expected to stay mad all day – again!

In fact, the only time she hadn't been angry in days had been the half-hour she'd spent with Harry, Ginny, Malorie, and the twins – and she shouldn't have done that anyway; since it didn't look as though she was going to be anything more than a friend to Jaimie and Lorie now either – if that. She doubted everything when it came to Malorie and her girls now; since she didn't see any relationship with them lasting for long if she wasn't with Jaimie and Lorie's uncle anymore.

That oasis of comparative-happy hadn't lasted long; and she'd soon been mad again – mostly because she hated the fact that he'd messed things up for her with his parents, Malorie, and the girls too. Sure, they'd been wonderful with her, but that wasn't a surprise; and it just made her feel worse to know that she wouldn't get to have many of those moments anymore – all because Al had decided to become some sort of Hogwarts Hermit who didn't want to step a toe out into the sunlight – even as he seemed to get more attention for doing that instead of less!

Okay, that made no sense at all, but she was a Witch; and logic was not necessarily required when lambasting and hating on a Wizard!

Sure, she'd been mad about how she felt now around his parents, but then she got mad at him for leaving all of the boring supply shopping for her to do on her own too – and she got to find out once again just how tedious it was to pick up everything from inks and quills to potions supplies and parchment. She and Rose had to walk all the way to and from town – no horseback rides from ex-boyfriends! – and she had to carry everything back to the castle again as well as distribute those supplies to the younger kids on her own too. The Harpies match hadn't ended up lasting very long, but she hated sitting with Rose – no offense to her – instead of being a member of one of the happy, cuddling couples that included Lily and Jonah – though they still weren't officially a couple and might never be one.

Now she faced another Sunday where she'd study with their now-tiny little study group; she'd do a make-up Quidditch practice with her team; and then hang out with the girls – or at least do that with the girls that weren't with their boyfriends instead. She'd probably volunteer for extra Prefect duties too; and then join Rose, Lily, and Jonah for Sunday night family night – which they'd likely just cancel soon, since they weren't really having any fun while spending that time mostly complaining about the mess that Al had made of all of their lives.

For most of her first fifteen years, she'd been sure that she would love Albus Potter forever. Now, after his last, stupid act of supposed self-sacrifice; she had serious doubts about whether she would ever even like him again!

Al's journey into self-discovery and the happy little adventures he had along the way continued on Sunday with happy cameo moments filling up his days – whether that was a birthday mirror chat with his Aunt Hermione that included his uncle's version of advice on Witches that he had no intention of following to some project research in the library and more quiet help for a half-dozen teens and tweens around the castle. His mirror chats with Malorie and the twins, and then with his parents, had been fun – especially the stories about Jaimie and Lorie that helped a bit with being away and missing out on those special moments.

Over the next week, he missed out on a lot of moments with the people he loved most too, but also knew as they went along that they were all dealing with the situation in their own way – with fairly-radical differences in how they were doing that. For Al, the next step in his transformation was beginning to help his classmates in their classes – usually teens that he hadn't helped very much in the past; but also his closer friends too. He didn't do much of that overtly – most of the time; he simply offered timely suggestions; lent out supplies that usually just appeared on worktables when needed most, or he helped out with learning spells or whatever else they were doing in their different subjects.

He didn't extend any kind of help when it came to Quidditch, and didn't start up a new study group, but he did sometimes help some of his fellow fifth-year classmates right along with the other teens and tweens that he sensed in need of help in varied ways. While quietly building new relationships was a side-effect of those efforts – at least with the kids he openly helped; he didn't draw attention to that and tried to make sure that none of them ended up having more trouble just from being associated with him in any way. Most of his aid continued to either be anonymous or simple, small kindnesses that meant something; while also not making him a memorable part of those incidents – as if he was a generic, kind person where only the act was remembered and appreciated.

All of that worked for him; and he was also okay with the things that he missed out on. He didn't miss Quidditch practices with all of the hate and jealousy from James, Ollie, and others. He was glad that he didn't go to the first Slug Club meeting on Friday night – though he'd been invited to join; and had politely declined Professor Slughorn's offer. Some of his classmates had known of the invitation to join, since he'd been handed it rather publicly along with the others that Professor Slughorn had delivered that day, but nobody except the Professor found out that he'd turned him down; and the rumors suggested that he just hadn't shown up because he didn't want to be there with Gwendolyn.

They were wrong about that – he just didn't want to be there at all! That wasn't even a change for him – he'd always felt that way about the Slug Club, and while he was happy to learn everything he could from their Professor because he was a master at his craft; he would never like Slughorn on a personal level. While everyone in the Slug Club discussed things that he considered vain and pointless; he spent Friday evening helping two kids with study troubles; stopped a bully from hurting a scared, timid, Hufflepuff firstie; and worked on his fledgling broom-making and trying to create a pair of magical, wireless earbuds for the mirrors. He had fun with all of that; some of the play time was challenging on a lot of levels; and while he would have loved to share all of that with Gwendolyn, Lily, Rose, and their friends; he could also admit that he wouldn't be able to do some of those things if he was tied up with other demands – like being a Prefect with Gwendolyn; Captain of their Quidditch team; or even a member of the Slug Club – which he might have been had he still been dating Gwendolyn when that invitation had been given to him. Oh –and he got all of his weekend revision finished on Friday night too!

They had an open weekend at the school – no Quidditch or other activities; which again left Al with lots of time to continue to pursue his interests and new activities. After what was now weeks of hidden help with bullies, he was happy to note that many of those bullies were just giving up – though some of them tried to hunt down their tormentors first – since they were sure that they weren't being bested by a single person. Al was never in any danger of being caught; and those bullies gave up on that too when they couldn't find so much as a clue to help them in that hunt.

He had one new issue come up with Malorie because her time off from work was coming to an end, and while she was supposed to start back part-time and work around what the twins needed; she did want to get back to actually earning her wages again. The problem Al had was that Rose still wasn't talking with him; she was in charge of GO MagiSports; and he had no right to help out with anything that she didn't want him to do. The answer proved to be simple – Rose wanted to continue to work with Malorie; and didn't want Al's help. That bit of drama didn't change things between him and Malorie – they just wouldn't talk about her work to any details beyond the basics and how it was working out with the twins' needs.

Even for Al, the wind-down to the end of September and the start of October meant focusing some of his attention on Hogwarts Quidditch – particularly when his sister and cousins were playing in that first match of the year on Saturday! He was aware of the extra work she put into getting ready to play her best – and have her team ready too; and wished that he could help her with the stress and fatigue. He couldn't; but he did take some of his extra time to make her good luck gift during the week; and wished her all of the best – even if she didn't want to hear those best wishes directly from him. The rest of the time, he continued on as he had been over the past few weeks; had fun with his studies and magical adventures; and kept busy straight through until he finished his weekend assignments ahead of curfew on Friday night.

He might be glad to be out of the spotlight for Quidditch; but he was still going to be at the stadium to cheer for his sister and her team – and he would have fun doing that too!

"You should look happier," Rose told Lily as she met up with her in the third-year dorms and they headed for the common room. "Is there something I haven't heard about yet that is going to be a problem today?"

"No – I'm annoyed with Al," she answered.

"Why this time?" Rose asked; and then shook her head. "He dropped off a good-luck gift on your bed, didn't he?" she guessed; and Lily nodded.

"Yeah, and it was funny and thoughtful; it will come in very handy today; and I hate it – and him!"

"Then I don't want to know what it is," Rose told her. "I'm still mad at him for every minute I've had to be anywhere near Captain James this week and for messing things up with the work I'm doing with Malorie. How is it that she can both think that he's the boring brother that she doesn't find interesting in any way and that he's the only reason for why her job was fun – and isn't fun anymore?"

"It does suck when another Witch's lack of logic over a Wizard messes with ours, but let's not go there either," Lily joked and suggested. "We all have more work than we used to have now that he's off having fun and trying to be the happy hermit of Hogwarts instead of doing all of the worst jobs for us like the good brother or cousin he used to be until he walked away from us."

Rose laughed derisively. "Yeah, we sure noticed that on our first Hogsmeade weekend; and I feel as though I have twice the Prefect work than what I should have – and would have had if Al hadn't quit."

"Possibly because Al's replacement keeps talking you into doing his jobs for him because he bit off more than he can chew by taking the job," Lily suggested. "I love Ray, but we're getting to find out first-hand why Prefects aren't picked from among the middle of the pack; and Ray has only been one of the better students because of working with you, Al, Gwendolyn, and Susannah."

"That's all still entirely Al's fault," Rose pointed out; and she sounded angry-enough that his decision to quit on them might have happened hours ago instead of exactly a month ago now – on the first couple of days of September.

"It is," Lily agreed. "So is all of the pressure I'm feeling this morning; so that good luck gift doesn't come close to making up for that. My team needs to win every match to even give us a shot at the Quidditch Cup because neither of us have any faith that James and Ollie won't screw it up for us while playing their stupid games – and that's yet one more thing for us to blame on my coward-brother."

"Well, if he shows his face at the stadium; do you want me to blast him?"

"No," Lily decided after seriously considering the idea for a long moment. "We can't afford to lose the points you'd have to take from our House for doing that in public. If I lose today; we'll track him down later and blast him together somewhere we can do that without any witnesses around."

"The other Houses are losing as many points as we are – and add that to the list of things you can blame Al for. He isn't trying to earn points in any of our classes; so lots of them are going to the other Houses instead – or they're just not awarded at all."

"Ditto that for Gwendolyn going around handing out detentions like they're candy and knocking off points from everyone along the way. He doesn't care – and isn't really a part of our House family anymore either," Lily pointed out. "We should be talking Quidditch – and you're supposed to help me to get ready to go out there and win today!"

"Okay," Rose agreed. "Get out there and win – and then we'll celebrate by tracking down your idiot brother and blasting him just for the fun of it!"

Brock McClaggen looked down at the catatonic forms of James and Ollie as they were passed out in their beds on Saturday morning; shook his head; and didn't even bother to attempt to wake them. The smell of Fire Whiskey on the pair of them was still strong and a bit stomach-churning so early in the morning. Even if he could manage to rouse them; they'd be horrid to be around; so it was best to leave them to sleep off their over-indulgence – again.

"No luck?" Tiberius called out from the doorway; and Brock shook his head.

"I didn't bother to try," he answered. "Maybe they'll make it out to the stadium in time for lunch – if the match lasts that long."

"Well, I can't say much, since I like to party as much as the next Wizard; but he's not much of a Captain, is he?"

"No, but he may very well be our ticket to playing on one of the best teams in the show; so we'll ride his broomtail all the way to the top if that's what it takes."

"Yeah, we will," Tiberius agreed – "and I'm not just saying that because of all the hot Witches he seems to attract like some kind of magnet!"

"That is a really great added bonus, though," Brock agreed.

Al left the Room of Requirements with fifteen minutes to spare ahead of game time; and literally flew to the back-side of the stadium so that he could change back to his human form without being noticed. He used an invisibility charm to get into the stadium unseen; and went up to the worst seats in one of the visitors' sections where he could watch the match without being observed by anyone – or razzed and insulted. He also didn't want to be near Gwendolyn – not that he didn't sense the continuing anger that simmered within her all of the time now. While his own reactions to what he sensed from her would have been guilt and self-loathing a month ago; Al found that he could know everything he did about what she was going through and still feel love and happiness – especially for her!

That thought had him smiling; since she'd likely tell him that it was all his fault that she was having a tough time finding any joy and happiness in her life. The problem with that, though, was that he understood that he couldn't give that to her – or to anyone else. The biggest problem Gwendolyn was having right now was that she wasn't happy anymore; and didn't know whether she'd find that again with him – or whether she'd need to find her happiness elsewhere.

Happy was a state of mind, though, and Al needed to keep focused on that, so he let all of the sensory inputs settle into the background; and focused his attention on the match that was about to start and having fun watching the game that he loved so much being played by a few of his favorite people!

Lily pasted a smile on her face that she didn't feel; led the way out into the stadium; and didn't really have any fun at all as she flew a lap of the stadium while Colin shouted out the player introductions; and then she landed at center pitch next to Mr. Peakes. She scanned the Gryffindor section and then had to frown on the inside when she didn't see either of her brothers anywhere – though Rose, Louis, and Fred were all there among the twelve players from the senior team that had shown up to support her team. The junior reserve squad players were there too; and Gwendolyn and Jonah were in the Ravenclaw section with their team mates and friends. She eventually located all of her friends, but while she hadn't expected Al to be cuddling with Gwendolyn or hanging out with Rose; she had expected him to be there – regardless of how mad she was at him! She wasn't disappointed by her brothers' actions – she was bitter and angry!

It wasn't long before the Slytherin team was on the pitch too; she smiled sweetly as the guys in particular glared at her and shared a few nasty comments under their breath. Mr. Peakes did his pre-game fair play speech; Derrick Selwyn tried to break her fingers with the handshake; and she silently cursed Al for the 'handy' gift that kept him from doing that because her grip was stronger than his thanks to the magical 'helping hand' charm!

She lined up next to Andrea Avery; didn't exchange any best luck wishes that would have been lies on both sides; and then took off as soon as the quaffle was tossed into the air.

"I'm so glad that your brother showed up today," Cyndia told Rose with a dark smile after they watched him make his first save of the match.

"That's funny, but I was just thinking that the brothers that didn't show up today will help our junior team a lot – if Lily takes all of that mad out on Slytherin."

"James might show up eventually," Brock offered from the row behind Ray – "if this match goes on long-enough and lunch is served out here."

"Maybe," Rose agreed with a shrug of indifference. "I hope Lily doesn't use up all of her mad during the game. We have plans to go Animorphcoward hunting later. We're going to blast him if we lose; or celebrate by blasting him if we win."

"Head Boy in the House," Louis reminded her – "and you're a Prefect."

"Are you saying you'd like to come along and help?" Rose countered. "Trying to knock some sense into him is what's best for him at this point."

"Is it?" Louis countered. "Why? Because you don't think that James should be Captain? Al's made it clear that he didn't really want the job, and other than the fact that James isn't here this morning; you can't say that he hasn't done well-enough as Captain so far since tryouts – even by you; and it isn't as if you've made that easy for him."

Rose snorted. "As if I don't have reason for suspicion," she retorted.

"People change," Louis countered. "Al has – you have. Is it so hard to believe that James wants what's best for our House too – even if he doesn't do things the way you or I would?"

"Yes – I absolutely can't believe that," she assured him.

"Then why are you here – with our team?" Tiberius asked her seriously. "If you don't trust James and think that he's just messing with you; then quit. I'm sure the Animorphloser would love the company."

"She doesn't want to quit," Brock offered. "She was sure she was going to get cheated at tryouts, but that didn't happen; so now she's stuck because James is playing fair with her." He laughed when he saw Rose's reaction. "Don't worry, Rose. You've been playing as badly as I've ever seen you play since making the team, so you'll have reason to complain come November; and James will be right to pick Louis over you for that match."

"Don't tell her that," Louis told him with only a faint attempt at making it a joke. "I want to play in that match as much as the rest of you do; so I don't want Rose to change a thing about how she's playing in our practices!"

"Can someone remind me again which team is Slytherin?" Stephanie asked. "I've been watching that Seeker duel; and I'm having trouble figuring that out."

"Gryffindor is the redhead seeing red," Gwendolyn answered shortly; biting off each word and spitting them out. "Maybe Lily's ticked off that her brothers were either too hung over or too much the coward to show up for her first match as team Captain. They're Wizards, though; so I don't know why she might have expected better."

"They're not all bad," Stephanie countered. "Pauline and I generally like ours quite a lot; and you've always seemed happy with yours."

"Give them time," Gwendolyn shot back. "they're sure to mess up and disappoint you eventually."

"Well, that's a cheery thought – not," Pauline offered. "Instead of getting started in on any Wizard-bashing, though, we don't have any pesky Gryffindors around; so let's help our junior team out and talk about the two teams up there that they'll be playing against next March and April. Jonah's going to have a cuple of tough Seeker duels from what I've seen so far from Lily and Andrea."

"That'll be the toughest battle against Slytherin," Peter suggested. "The rest of their players seem to be trying to play like the Falcons, but while they're getting in lots of hits; I don't see any sign that their Chasers are good-enough to claw back from a one-sixty lead – especially if Hugo keeps playing that well."

"Just get Katrina to bash his head in during your match against Gryffindor," Gwendolyn suggested to Jonah. "Problem solved."

"You want Katrina to put one of our best mates in the hospital wing just to win the game?" Jonah asked; turning around to look up at his sister. "You would've never ordered a hit like that when you were Captain."

"I've a new perspective," Gwendolyn shot back. "As far as I'm concerned; bashing in Wizards' heads should be a new sport for every Witch to play all of the time!"

"Will you include Dad and me in that new game?" Jonah asked her. "How about our grandfathers, uncles, and all of the male members of our family? Will you have an age limit? Our newest cousin is a bit young yet for having his head bashed in, don't you think?"

"I'm a Witch – logic is not required," Gwendolyn retorted. "Keep it up; and I'll be starting today's round with you!"

"Shutting up now," Jonah said; choosing that option over telling his sister what he really thought of the way she'd been acting for more than a month now – since Al had apparently sucked all of the love and joy out of her when he walked away and decided that he didn't want to be the kind of Wizard that she'd need him to be to continue on in the drama game that everyone else was playing.

He got that and sometimes wished he could do the same – even though is own problems were nothing compared to the way everyone seemed to need to treat Al lately just to get what they wanted or to somehow feel better about themselves by comparison. As of late, though he hated to admit it; he wasn't sure that even his own sister deserved to have a person as kind and loving as Al for a boyfriend – or even a friend of any sort!

.

All of his good intentions were tested as Al watched the Slytherin guys go after the Witches on the Gryffindor team – including Lily and Roxanne. Derrick Selwyn continued to develop his style along the traditional Slytherin lines – cheat and bash his way to victory. It was challenging to stay happy and positive with all of the nastiness going on above the pitch, but he tried to do that; and there were reasons-enough to be happy. While the Slytherin guys fought and clawed at their opponents; Kathryn, Melissa, and Roxanne put on a clinic for how to work as a Chaser trio to overcome those attacks. Yes, they took some hard hits; but they also scored a lot of goals too – while Hugo was playing brilliantly in goal for Gryffindor.

In fact, Al could see the parallels to how the Falcons played; and Derrick didn't seem to mind that the score was getting out of hand quickly. That should have been a problem for him, but he was likely oblivious to the fact that Andrea was in a seriously-tough Seeker duel with Lily, and while the Slytherin Beaters tried to bash Lily - and succeeded regularly; they couldn't coordinate that to happen when Andrea might have a chance to catch the snitch. That strategy proved to be stupid – though it took Gryffindor a bit more than three hours of hard play to earn the one-sixty lead. That was the difference in the match too because Lily backed off and didn't try to stop Andrea from doing anything; but Derrick wouldn't give his Seeker the green light to make the snitch catch for the loss.

There was no end in sight for the match when lunch was served outside of the stadium, but even though the two teams agreed to a mutual time-out shortly after that so they could get food and drinks; Al stayed hidden and in his seat for the duration of the match. Resumption of a match after time-outs sometimes led to quick ends to Quidditch matches, but that didn't happen in this case – which proved to be a bit of a problem for Al because he couldn't use his mirror to watch the Harpies-Tornados match when it started. He could listen in to other mirrors that had been gotten out by others to watch the big match too; but that wasn't quite the same as watching the show too.

Fortunately, there was lots to see with the match right in front of him, and while Lily had her team mates switch to defense too so that they could protect themselves better and not totally run up the score on Slytherin, she also had to keep fighting on in her own duel. That was a strange dance because she didn't try to defend against Andrea – but against the Slytherin Beaters and some of the other guys who would take a shot at her if they got the chance to do it. For her part, Andrea had to chase Lily all over the place – with almost all of that effort for no reason at all because it was just Lily's way of wearing her down.

That strategy eventually worked, but it took Lily about two and a half hours to do that from the time of their one-sixty lead – not including the time-out.

Her catch came at the five hour and thirty-six minute mark of the match; and Al was in a great place to watch her catch because she did that no more than thirty feet away from him. As she'd done other times, Lily had flown hard for more than ten minutes; she'd taken a break for long minutes of doing nothing more than watching the Chasers and Keepers battle it out; and then this time, she attacked the moment Roxanne scored the last goal of the match and Andrea was caught going the wrong way and distracted for too long by the goal and Colin's shouted announcement of both the goal and the current score.

Al didn't make any noise; didn't jump to his feet; or do anything else that would have brought attention his way. He did cheer on the inside, though, and as he watched his sister with all of his senses on high; he knew that he was happier by far than she was – and he wished more than anything to see the spark he was used to seeing when she was playing brilliantly and having fun along the way.

He also knew that she blamed that lack of enthusiasm and excitement on him.

"Yeah for us," Lily said dully as she met up with her team around the Gryffindor goals and they shared a round of muted, mid-air congratulations. "You all played brilliantly. Now let's land before I fall off my broom."

"I'm glad that I'm not the only one feeling that way – or not,' Roxanne said tiredly. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, we do," Hugo agreed. "We're very inconsistent, since we complained about the match being too short last year; and now we wish that this match had been that short. I've got bruises on top of bruises; and don't even want to find out how bad the damage is."

"Well, let's all suck it up until we're safely in the locker room," Lily suggested. "Our fans await us – and we need to try and pretend to be good sports with our valiant opponents instead of blasting them – which is what I really want to do right now."

"Don't," Kathryn told her firmly. "We're Gryffindor; and that's not the way we're supposed to do things."

Lily laughed derisively. "Tell that to all of the gits on our senior team,' she suggested; and then shook her head. "Let's save that up for another time. I'm just too sore and tired to care about much of anything right now – not even this brilliant win."

Al watched and waited as the stadium began to empty and the meet-and-greet on the pitch went on far-longer than Lily and her team mates would have liked. When he had the opening; he made his way to the Gryffindor locker room; went inside without being seen; and then dropped the invisibility charm and sat down to wait for his sister, cousins, and the rest of the junior team. That took a while, but they did eventually join him there; and then they collectively stopped and stared at him.

"What are you doing here?" Lily demanded. "Get lost! This is our team locker room; and you're quite obviously not a team player anymore!"

"I'm not," he agreed quietly as he stood and quickly crossed the room to her. He didn't pause and stepped right into a hug. She fought that for just a blink of an eye and then stiffened and her eyes went wide with shock as he hit her with a full-power blast of healing that was overwhelming. She felt as if she'd just woken from the best sleep ever when he was finished; and he stepped back quickly and smiled wryly at her. "I love you, Lily. Congratulations – you were brilliant out there today. Now, before you try to blast me or kick me out; look away, pretend that I'm not here, and let me help your team mates too."

He didn't actually wait for an answer, but Lily pointedly did exactly as he'd asked while he either hugged or made other contact with everyone else for as long as he needed to while healing all of them – if maybe not to quite the same state as for what he'd done with Lily. Roxanne, Kathryn, and Melissa had each returned his hugs; but hadn't attempted to say anything – just those silent thanks. When he was done; he walked out of the locker room as Lily said – "five, four, three, two..."

Rose was heading toward the castle with Gwendolyn and a few of their friends. They were most of the way there when she happened to be looking over her shoulder to hear what Cyndia was saying and caught sight of a beautiful falcon taking to flight from around the Gryffindor locker room side of the stadium.

"He was there!" she declared; getting everyone's attention.

"Who – Al?" Gwendolyn demanded; and then frowned when she looked to see what had Rose's attention and saw the falcon too. "Do you want to go bird hunting?"

"He's leaving from the locker rooms," Rose advised her; and smiled grimly when Gwendolyn caught her meaning right away.

"He was there – and he waited until they were there to heal them," she deduced.

"That's my guess," Rose agreed. She kept her eyes on the bird. "He still seems to have all of his body parts. How badly was Lily hurt for her to let him fly off in one piece?"

"I thought that she was just mad – not hurt," Gwendolyn admitted; "but I'd rather spend a month in the hospital wing than have Al come near me with his magic healing touch."

"Is that really true?" Rose asked; and Gwendolyn glared at her.

"You'd better believe it!" she insisted. "In fact, I'm going to guess that Lily will be mad at him once she comes to her senses again, and if she were me right now; she'd do this!" With that, she drew her want; and fired off a curse at Al. They all watched as it seemed to hit him full on with a brilliant flash of light. Feathers went flying everywhere; and he plummeted toward the ground.

"Gwendolyn!" Rose exclaimed; drawing her own wand; but then gaped as they all watched Al spread his wings again at the last monent; practically brush the ground with his talons; and then soar back into the air and fly off with a parting, acrobatic flare that was breathtaking to watch!

"See – nothing to worry about," Gwendolyn declared with a derisive snort. "He's likely already healed – if that even hurt him at all in the first place!" Rose stared at her in consternation; and Gwendolyn just laughed. "You've talked about hunting him down and blasting him all day, Rose! If you didn't find that fun too; then don't bother going out on that Animorphloser hunt with Lily and whomever else goes with her; since I'm sure they'll be trying to do much worse than that to him!"

Al went straight to the Room of Requirements from the stadium; and was still smiling – though he expected that most people would think he was nuts to be amused by Gwendolyn's attempt to blast him while in Falcon form. She'd surely be furious with him if she found out that he'd just pretended to be knocked out of the sky by her attack, but he thought that had been fun and at least a bit funny; and he'd enjoyed the play time while recovering from that dive and then flying away – even if it had hurt more than a little to know that Gwendolyn had really hoped that he'd crash to the ground and really get hurt.

That wasn't very nice, but you had to give her points for accuracy hitting a flying, moving target, though, right?

Jokes didn't really help him to deal with all of the anger that Gwendolyn was still directing at him even now, and while it wasn't the same as it had been for him while dealing with all of the dark emotions and cheap shots he had to sense and watch from the Slytherin players during the match; the combination of all of the anger and darkness added up and was tough to deal with for so many long, draining hours. His new goals weren't just meant for the good times, though, so he got his portable mirror out; tuned into the Harpies' match in progress; and immersed himself in that dose of Quidditch fun while quietly working to mentally get back to the happy place he wanted to strive for having all of the time.

Lily frowned as James sauntered over; flopped down onto the chair next to her that Hugo had recently vacated while going to get them drink refills and a snack; and threw an arm casually around her shoulder and pulled her into a half-hug before leaving his arm draped around her shoulders.

"How are the Tornados doing today? Kicking some Harpies butts, I hope!"

"Better than your Catapults did against us; but we have a small lead," Lily answered shortly.

"They'd have won had I been playing in that match," James declared. "I'm okay with the problems the Catapults are having without me. It'll make them appreciate me even more when I can play for them again over the holidays." He laughed at that. "Maybe I'll even come home for Christmas if the Animorphhermit stays here wherever he's hiding and licking his wounds."

"He won't stay here," Lily assured him. "There's no way he'd miss out on our nieces' first Christmas."

James laughed. "Finally – you admit that the Animorphlitter is his!"

Lily elbowed him – hard!

"Ow!" he exclaimed. "Don't take your being mad at the loser out on me!"

"I'm not mad at him – I'm furious!" Lily hissed; "but that doesn't mean I pick you instead! Right now, I hate the both of you! For this particular moment, and in your case; it's mostly because you were passed out and too drunk or hung over to bother to come to my first Hogwarts Quidditch match as team Captain; you come over here and pretend to be all buddy-buddy while heaping crap on me after I got pounded all day to get that win for our House; and then you deny the truth about Jaimie and Lorie while idiotically implying that I'd even for a second go along with your lies about them! In Al's case, while I'm hating on him for a lot of things too, he gave me a brilliant good luck gift that I hate because it was so bloody thoughtful and kind; I now know that he was there for my match today; and then, to top it all off – he was wating for us in the locker room and healed the lot of us just because he knew that we needed the help – and despite how horrid I've been to him!" She'd hissed all of that out in a whisper that only James would hear; stood up; and leaned over and put her head next to his – her mouth to his ear. "Stay away from me James. I hate Al right now for being so nice that he's decided to say the hell with the rest of us while still going around and doing his best by us – including you. I hate you because you're an egotistical, selfish git who doesn't give a damn about anyone; and you'll do anything, no matter how horrid or regardless of who you destroy along the way, to take what you want."

"Even when you're mad at the loser; you still believe the lies," James retorted. "I beat him this time; and that's the simple truth."

Lily laughed. "Did you? Congratulations!"

With that; she walked away from him and the celebration in progress; left the common room; and went outside to find somewhere by the lake where she could stew in silence.

Al didn't venture out from the Room of Requirements for the rest of the day. He studied; worked on some toys and other projects; and kept his mirror close while he worked and played so that he could keep an eye on the Harpies' match. He had another dinner for one that was, admittedly, geting boring due to lack of food variety now that his fresh food supply had run out, but he still preferred the quiet to the mental noise that bombarded him during meals in the Great Hall – even as he did miss spending that time with Rose and their Gryffindor friends. The Quidditch entertainment continued to be great through until Gabrielle won the match for the Harpies at the six-hour, twenty-four minute mark to earn the brilliant, hard-fought, five-twenty to three-twenty win.

After that many hours of Quidditch, Al decided to switch to music for a while. Playing guitar helped to keep him feeling happy even though music wasn't as much fun for him without Gwendolyn, but that didn't keep him from enjoying himself – and he worked on two new songs before he was ready to move on to a bit of magic play time that kept him busy until it was time to head for his dorm room and bed ahead of curfew.

Gwendolyn entered the Ravenclaw common room with Toni and Renee; frowned darkly when she spotted Michael waiting for Toni with a rose in his hands; and then saw the gang of Witches around the notice board while Toni passed her and hurried over to meet up with Michael.

"Great – a Halloween dance!" she groused. "Just what I need on top of everything else!"

"Maybe it's exactly what you need," Renee suggested with a bright smile. "I'm certainly looking forward to breaking a few hearts – unless a particularly-hot Wizard asks me out sooner instead of later!"

"You can have them all," Gwendolyn told her; sounding disgusted. "I'll skip the stupid dance and go have a soak in the Prefect baths for the night."

"You wish," Renee said with a laugh. "Prefects have to work school dances. You'll have to do patrols or something else; so you should get a date; make the best of it; and try to have a bit of fun for a change!"

"If I wanted to have some fun, I'd go track down my ex-boyfriend and blast him again!" Gwendolyn declared darkly.

They had continued through the common room without waiting for Toni and Michael; so it was only a minute later when they reached the hallway and found Al waiting there; holding a small gift and smiling brilliantly the moment he saw Gwendolyn.

"Well, that's convenient," Renee deadpanned. "Now's your big chance!"

"What do you want?" Gwendolyn demanded angrily as she stalked up to Al and glared at him.

"I just heard that there's to be a Halloween dance the Saturday night before Halloween," he said easily. "I know we haven't met before, but I think that you're the most amazing Witch I've ever seen in my life; and was hoping that you'd go to the dance with me."

"Did you get hit in the head with a bludger?" she demanded; and then sneered at him. "Oh wait – you couldn't have; since you quit on your team, your House, your friends – and me! That must mean that you've just lost your mind!"

Al laughed easily; and that just made her even angrier. "I'm introducing you to the new me," he explained; holding out the gift to her. "Would you go to the Halloween dance with me, Gwendolyn McCormack?"

"Not if you were the last Wizard on this stinking, rotten planet!" she answered; batting the gift away and ignoring it as it hit the wall and dropped to the floor. "I hate you, Al. We were all set to have a brilliant school year, and the minute we got here; you threw it all away – threw us away!" She was shaking with anger now as she drew her wand and blasted him point blank. He hit the same wall the gift had; but didn't cry out; and landed gracefully on his feet.

"I guess that's a no," he decided; his smile wry now as he continued to focus his attention on her. "I love you, Gwendolyn – forever." He said that quietly-enough that only Gwendolyn and Renee heard him; though their confrontation and her attack was drawing way too much attention. "Have a good day – I'll leave you to get back to it."

He turned and walked away from the normal direction to the Great Hall; went Animorphmagus; and didn't stop or seem to react as Gwendolyn appeared to hit him with two more spells that she'd been sure would hurt him in any form.

"You can stop now," Renee told her. "I'm fairly-sure he gets the point." Looking down, she stepped over to the wall; picked up the gift; and held it out to her.

"I don't want that stupid bribe!" Gwendolyn spat venomously.

"Can I have it then?" Renee asked; and Gwendolyn glared daggers at her that Renee ignored.

"Keep it, burn it, throw it away – I don't care!" Gwendolyn insisted; but then she didn't storm off when she saw Renee simply go ahead and start unwrapping it. The eyes of both Witches widened when Renee opened the little jewelry box and saw the small ring with a pair of exquisite blue and emerald stones that were a match for her eyes and his sparkling up at them in the morning sunlight from the windows.

"Holy sh...molly!" Renee gasped; and had to force herself to look away from the ring and into Gwendolyn's eyes. She held the ring box out to her again. "Thanks – and I really mean that; but I can't keep a gift this great."

"Then throw it out," Gwendolyn ordered darkly; refusing to take the box from her friend. They were both startled when Toni reached in and took it instead. Then she grabbed Gwendolyn's arm and tugged on it.

"Come with me," she ordered. "I'll meet you in the Great Hall," she told Michael when he moved to go with her. "Gwendolyn and I need to have a little talk first before we go there."

"There's nothing to talk about," Gwendolyn spat; but found that she had to go along because Toni didn't give her a choice – and was strong-enough to do that short of Gwendolyn getting into a physical fight with her.

"Shut it!" Toni whispered quietly. "We'll talk once we're alone!"

Gwendolyn was tempted to lash out, but Toni was acting so far out of her norm that she went along if for no other reason than that she'd be able to blast her friend once they were alone – if needed. Toni led her into a nearby classroom; closed the door behind them; and then used her wand to seal the room before turning to face Gwendolyn.

"You, my friend, are a colossal idiot!" she said loudly and angrily. "I've really only gotten to know you since we started here at Hogwarts together – though we had met before through Al's parents at a couple of parties they'd had for both Auror and Harpies' friends, so I only have these last four years to go on, but over the last month; I've come to wonder if I knew you at all!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gwendolyn demanded.

"Can't you figure that out for yourself?" Toni countered. "In our first four years, you were happy, kind to everyone around you, and only got mad if someone wronged you or someone you cared about. In the last month, to be blunt; you've been a Witch with a capital 'B' to everyone. So what I have to ask myself now is if this is the real you – what you're truly like as a person without having all of that love from Al to soften the true, inner you? Is this who you are, Gwendolyn? You're supposed to be one of the best Ravenclaw students – a Prefect, House Quidditch player, and role model for the rest of us to be proud of and the kind of person we should all want to aspire to be like! Instead, you've become a Prefect that nobody wants to go to for help; you've taken hundreds of points away from students all over the castle for the dumbest of reasons; and I'll wager that you haven't awarded a single point for any good deeds because you don't see any good around you at all!"

"If you want to file a complaint..." Gwendolyn began to retort; but Toni cut her off with an angry wave of her hand.

"I'm not done!" she declared hotly. "While you've been going around treating everyone as horridly as you possibly can and pushing everyone away; some of us actually pay attention and see what's going on around us! Do you know what I've seen and heard of from Al?"

"No," Gwendolyn had time to snap before Toni continued anyway.

"I've seen and heard enough to guess that he's been going around the castle helping out with everything from keeping kids from being bullied to tutoring firsties having trouble getting started with learning magic and more! I heard of one kid getting an anonymous gift of a mirror and RevisionWizard that was just there on his bed one morning – and that's just one example of gifts that have just been showing up for kids in need."

"Big deal – so he's going around helping a few kids," Gwendolyn shot back. "He could have done that as a Prefect – and just threw that away!"

"You mean the way you've been helping everyone?" Toni countered. "Do you think that he'd have liked going around punishing other teens and tweens for breaking rules? Dressing them down in front of their friends so that they'd be ridiculed and laughed at? Face it, Gwendolyn – you've been a horror of a Prefect so far! Actually, you've just flat-out been a horror in general. Is that who you want to be?" She opened the ring box and held it out to her. "This ring obviously isn't from a store in Hogsmeade," she observed. "That means he bought it for you before we came back to school. Even after the awful way you've treated him over the past month – including just now; he still wants to offer you his heart forever!"

"What about the way he's treated me?" Gwendolyn demanded furiously. "We had it all goiing for us – and he threw it away without even talking about it with me!"

"He hasn't handled any of this very well with you; but you haven't tried to work things out with him either. You really did have it all too, Gwendolyn," Toni agreed. "The problem is that you still seem to think that all of the love and happiness isn't what was really special about you and Al – which brings us back around to my main point of this little chat. If you truly do only care about all of the superficial things that Al has never cared about; then you should just admit it to yourself; move on; and if this is the real you – go out and find some like-minded friends and a boyfriend that cares as much about those things as you do. I hear that James Potter would be interested in hooking up with you – and if you really want to hurt Al for having the audacity to mess up your brilliant vision of what your life with him was supposed to be like; then that'd be the way to do it!"

"Maybe I'll do just that!" Gwendolyn declared. "I've heard there's to be a Halloween dance I could invite him to be my date for it!" she added in dark mimmick of Al's invitation. "Are we done here? I've a breakfast to get to; studying; and a make-up Quidditch practice after that to do before I'll have any time at all to go around the castle making sure that everyone is following the rules and staying out of trouble!" Toni shook her head sadly. She tried to give Gwendolyn the ring and box, but she refused; so Toni put it on the nearest work table – leaving the lid open so the blue sapphire and emerald still sparkled out at them.

"If you follow through on that date threat, you're even more the fool than I expected," she told Gwendolyn solemnly. "Then again, if this is the kind of Witch you truly are; then you and James will be perfect together – and he'll have been right about that all along!"

"Get out of here before i blast you next," Gwendolyn snarled.

"Now you sound exactly like James every time we've seen him turn on his friends – usually for daring to stand up to him or try telling the truth."

"Yeah, well I've been learning to understand lately how he feels to have his friends stab him in the back," Gwendolyn retorted. "Good on you, Toni – well done!"

"No – not good on me," Toni disagreed. "If it was, you'd be on the way back to being the Witch and friend that I've come to know and love over the past four years instead of the one you've become lately – a person I don't want to have as a friend at all." She sighed unhappily. "I'll let Rose know that Michael and I won't be joining our study group anymore – at least for now. It just isn't fun anymore."

"So you're going to quit on me too? Like the Animorphcoward? Like Susannah? You all make me sick! go on – get out of here! I'm sure you'll all be very happy together!"

"Michael and I will study with some other friends," Toni advised her. "Susannah's already told me that Al wouldn't let her study or hang out with him – not that it kept you from starting those nasty rumors about them. We're also not quitting. We're just following Al's lead – and choose to be happy and put love and fun back into our lives." She shook her head again. "This is so dumb! Make your choice too, Gwendolyn, but if you don't choose love; don't be like James and decide that you need to destroy Al to prove whatever you think that you need to prove before you can get on with your own life! Nobody deserves to be treated like that; and that's especially-true for the people that love us most – the way that Al loves you."

"Hexing you in five... four..." Gwendolyn threatened; and glared angrily as Toni shook her head again; dropped the wards she'd put up; and walked away from her friend – just as Al and Susannah had already done before her! "And good riddance!" she declared to the empty room.

The sparkling ring caught her eye and she turned her glare on it next. She pointed her wand at it and snarled out – "Revulsio!" and then watched in satisfaction as the box and ring were blasted across the room and hit the wall hard before once again falling to the floor. That felt good; so she levitated it and floated it back to the same work table to do it again – until she saw that she'd already all but destroyed the box. Instead of blasting it again; she walked over and looked down at it. The ring was still there and didn't look the worse for wear, but instead of blasting it again; she picked the broken mess up; shoved it into a pocket; and stormed out of the room. She headed straight for the Great Hall; stalked straight up along the Gryffindor table; and stopped in front of James. He turned and smiled as he looked up at her – and did that immediately because she'd gotten the attention of everyone around them.

"Good morning, Gwendolyn. To what do I owe this honor?"

"I've heard there's to be a Halloween dance," she told him. "Do you want to go to it with me?"

"Absolutely!" James assured her enthusiastically.

"You've already asked me to the dance!" Patricia told him indignantly.

"Sorry, but I've just gotten a better offer," James told her with no hint of apology.

"Don't feel bad," Gwendolyn told Patricia. "He's just the perfect revenge date to me – you can have him back when I'm done with him."

"I'm okay with that," James assured her with a grin – "though I expect that you won't be able to resist coming back for more – again and again and again!"

Gwendolyn waved him off dismissively. "Try those sorts of lines on the Witches gullible-enough to believe you. I've gotta go now. We'll talk later about that date."

"Anytime; any place," James assured her; his grin now vicious and victorious as he watched her walk away – and appreciated the view. She really was hot – now that she was about to be his while they crushed the loser's pathetic little heart!

Gwendolyn continued along the table to where Lily was sitting; pulled the broken up ring box out of her pocket; and dropped it so that Lily had to react quickly to catch it.

"Tell the Animorphcoward that I've decided to go to the Halloween dance with a real Wizard instead of the Hogwarts' Hermit!" she spat.

"What's this?" Lily demanded; and then sucked in a breath when she caught sight of the ring in what was left of the box.

"A bribe," Gwendolyn snarled. "You can tell him I can't be bought either! See you around, Lily. Feel free to hex him once or twice more for me – he ran off before I could finish blasting him this morning."

With that said; she walked away – leaving a stunned group of Gryffindors behind her. She went over to the Ravenclaw table; sat down next to Renee; and began to fill her plate.

"What's going on?" Renee whispered. "If I didn't know better; I'd say that you just asked James Potter to the dance!"

"That's exactly what I did," Gwendolyn agreed- and nodded across the table to Toni. "Thanks for the brilliant idea! If everyone thinks that I'm just like James now – I may as well find out if I have been hung up on the wrong brother all along!" She looked on unsympathetically when Toni began to cry. "Those must be tears of joy," she offered maliciously. "I really want to thank you for making everything seem so clear to me now!"

She laughed derisively when Toni got up and ran off – and Michael followed as soon as he could grab their bags.

"Don't go!" she called out. "The fun is just getting started!"

"What was that all about?" Kathryn demanded of Lily. "What did she give you?"

"Did she just tell us that she's going to the dance with James?" Milissa added.

"Yes, she did," Lily answered; still stunned – "and she wants me to return this to Al." She held up the ring for emphasis; and both of her friends gasped and stared at it with wide, astonished-looking eyes.

"That's a promise ring!" Kathryn breathed. "It must be!"

"I'd say so," Lily agreed. "And I'm supposed to take it back to Al and tell him that she doesn't want it – and is going to go out with James to prove it!"

"Merlin!" Kathryn whispered.

"Yeah – what she said," Melissa agreed.

The rumors about Gwendolyn raced around the Great Hall – in part because neither she or James were shy about admitting that the rumors were true – along with a fair bit of embellishment on both sides. Rose, Ray, and Cyndia talked about it with their friends while having breakfast; they met up with Lily and her friends after they finished eating; and went on to their usual study classroom to talk about it.

"Who wants to start?" Lily asked.

"More like – where do we start?" Rose countered. "With Al being idiot-enough to think that Gwendolyn would just forgive all if he walked up to her as if nothing had happened over the past month and asked er do the Halloween dance?"

"Don't forget that he came bearing a rather impressive peace offering," Kathryn pointed out.

"You mean the bribe," Lily countered. "I think that I'm on the other side of the fence with Gwendolyn on that one."

"So if that was you and Jonah; you'd throw away the ring – and him; and then go hook up with whichever Wizard would hurt Jonah the most?" Melissa asked her. "Have you all lost your minds?"

"Apparently," Rose agreed – "and now Gwendolyn may have gone too far for any of us to come back from!"

"I haven't even come close to going too far," Gwendolyn told her as she walked into the room. "In fact; I haven't even gotten anywhere with James – yet. Having fun talking about me behind my back?"

"No, but we'll be happy to talk with you about this to your face," Lily told her bluntly. "What are you trying to do, Gwendolyn? Make Al jealous? Get him to come running out of the Room of Requirements and have a duel with James over you?"

"That'd be a good start," Gwendolyn agreed candidly. "Do you think that this will finally get his attention?"

"You've never lost his attention!" Lily told her seriously. "You know that I'm furious with him too; but this isn't going to work! What were you thinking? Al will never, ever tear James – or anyone else – down to keep you – no matter how much either of you want to hate him for being that compassionate and caring of everyone else! You didn't think this through at all, did you? Let me guess – you blasted Al; Toni called you an idiot; and you decided that a revenge date was a brilliant way to knock some sense into Al when nothing else we've tried has worked so far!"

"You should've said hello if you were there," Gwendolyn said scornfully; but her face had paled and she was trembling with a mix of anger and horror as what Lily told her sank in.

"I don't want to make jokes of this!" Lily told her seriously. "You've crossed the line, Gwendolyn! What's worse, is that the more I think about this; he'd let you go as far as you choose to take that revenge dating with James – go all the way; if you know what I mean. He'd forgive anything of you – of any of us!"

"I'm not dating him anymore," Gwendolyn retorted; her anger flaring again. "What right would he have to forgive me when I'm doing nothing wrong!"

"You're trying to use James to either get Al to fight for you – or to hurt him in the worst sort of way," Rose told her bluntly. "Are you going to stand here and tell us that you don't believe you're doing something wrong?"

"Look at you all high and mighty!" Gwendolyn sneered. "Would you still feel that way if i could get James to give you the Keeper job over Louis in every match this season? I'd wager he'd do that for me – just to finish off the Animorphcoward!" She laughed derisively at Rose's reaction. "You're lying to yourself!" she crowed. "You've all gone along with James' plan – and now you dare to call me out for this? Give me a break!"

"We've all gone along with James' plan," Lily said quietly; her voice tinged with hurt and regret. "I'm done being played." She took the broken ring box over to Gwendolyn and forced it into her hands. "Don't tell me to do anything with this. You call Al a coward – prove that you're not; and take it back to him yourself. I get it now – finally; and I quit too!"

With that; she walked out of the room without waiting for her friends to join her – though they did follow instead of staying to watch whatever happened next.

"Are you going to quit too?" Gwendolyn sneered; turning her attention to Rose. "Go ahead – and while you're at it; quit your Quidditch team and being a Prefect while you're at it!"

"I honestly don't know what to do," Rose admitted candidly. "Lily's right – we are all being played – and have been going right along with it while putting all of the blame on Al and none of it on ourselves! On the other hand, I want some of those things that Al's walked away from now – things that I am willing to fight for!"

"No matter the cost?" Cyndia asked. She looked up at Ray. "If James starts playing you against me, and gives you a chance to play on the team at my expense; could you go along with it? Would you hook up with Lacey for a revenge date if things didn't work out with me? Could you actually go from loving me to hating me that much?" She turned her attention to Gwendolyn. "I'm sorry, but I can't help but be disgusted at even the idea of doing that – and I could never hate Ray enough to hook up with Ollie." She sighed. "I guess I'm with Lily; don't want to be like this; and quit too." She returned her attention to Ray. "I'll be okay with whatever you decide to do about all of this; but I'm done with being played too. I want to go back to having fun again – and we aren't having fun with any of this."

"I'm with you," Ray told her; and then looked from Rose to Gwendolyn and back again. "I pick both of you too," he advised them. "Let's figure out a way to work this out. Cyndia and I will be happy to help you come up with a new game to play – one that doesn't tear us apart the way this one is doing."

He took Cyndia's offered hand; and walked with her out of the room too; leaving Rose and Gwendolyn alone to face off against – or with – each other.

"And then there were two," Gwendolyn said scornfully.

"Funny you should put it that way," Rose offered with a wry grimace. "I really need to thank you – though I'm not happy about that."

"I'm sure that makes sense to you," Gwendolyn retorted; and Rose nodded.

"It does. Thanks to you; I've a brand-new reason to be mad at Al – for proving to me that I really don't like who I am without my favorite cousin in my life." She held up a hand when Gwendolyn was about to offer another retort. "This isn't about you,' she continued. "You can choose to move on from here however you want – with Al; with James; or any other way you want to go. I hope we can stay friends. I love you a lot, Gwendolyn. I also really do need to make some other choices too, but one of them is easy – I'm going to track Al down and ask him to forgive me for being such a total rotter to him over the past month." This time, she smiled ruefully at Gwendolyn. "After that; I'll likely have to take a stand and try to stop you from blasting him anymore. Would you like to return that ring and have one more chance to do that before that'll be a new problem for us?"

Gwendolyn ground her teeth as she reached the hallway in front of the Room of Requirements and the door appeared just in time and opened up for her. She kicked it open the rest of the way; and was disappointed when she saw that Al wasn't standing on the other side. Instead; he was on one of his sofas; playing with one of his Animorphmagus toys; and looking as if he hadn't a care in the world! He smiled at her as she walked in and then slammed the door as loudly as she could with an angry wave of her wand.

"You knew I was coming?" she spat derisively. "Of course you did! You know all!"

"I got the foresight heads up a few moments ago," he agreed; "but I don't know all. If I did; I might have left the door closed."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded; feeling a strong sense of déjà vu as she felt as though she'd been asking that question a lot all morning.

"I hadn't heard the hottest gossip of the morning before you walked in," he explained.

Gwendolyn snorted. "You likely knew before I asked James to go to the dance with me," she retorted; and then tossed the ring and busted up box at him. She was annoyed when he caught it deftly instead of letting it hit him in the head – and her aim had been so good too!

"I didn't," he disagreed; and annoyed her even further by silently repairing the ring box without looking as though he'd even thought about it while making it happen. "Do you notice anything different about this room?"

"It's the most boring one I've been in so far," she offered scornfully; and frowned when Al laughed.

"That's actually true," he advised her seriously. "The Room of Requirements gave this room to me when I needed it most last month. It blocks out everything that I normally sense about how everyone around me is feeling or thinking. It's the one place I can come to actually find any peace from all of the mental noise I have to deal with the rest of the time."

"Good for you!" Gwendolyn told him. "I'm so happy that your response to finding out that I'm going to go on a date with your brother is to tell me about your special quiet place!"

"Maybe that's exactly the reaction I should have," Al suggested. "You've known for years now that I sense a lot more around me than anyone else does, but I haven't told you everything, Gwendolyn. I've had reasons for that; but let me try to explain why this room has become so important to me."

"Why should I care?" Gwendolyn countered.

"Because maybe it'll help you to at least understandwhy I've needed to walk away from the things that don't matter to me – and why I won't even fight for you." He sighed at what he sensed from her. "I sense everything around me, Gwendolyn – not just nearby anymore – for miles around me. Every emotion, every 'loud' thought – everything! Now, we all have dark emotions and thoughts – that's normal. For some of us; those are small things – moments of darkness in an otherwise bright, happy life. For others; darkness is just the way they are – the way they choose to live their lives. Now, imagine that you could sense all of that darkness all of the time – day and night!" He paused for a moment as all of that began to sink in for her.

"The Room of Requirements didn't just give me this room when I needed it most – it gave it to me when I was ready to understand what it would mean for me! I needed to change before it was too late!"

"Change from what?" Gwendolyn demanded. "You were already the kindest, most-loving Wizard I know! You're brilliant; you could be a great Quidditch player – even with the Cannons; and it doesn't hurt that you're reasonably-hot. You earned those Captain and Prefect badges; and should have stood up for yourself!"

"I could have done that," Al agreed candidly – "but at what cost? The last time I tried to get James to leave us alone I ate him and then puked him up again. Where do I go from there? How far should I go? How far to too much? I'm not afraid for him – or anyone else I might have needed to fight, Gwendolyn. I'm afraid of what I could become something even-worse than Voldemort!"

"That's ridiculous!" Gwendolyn retorted. "If you're just trying to get me to stroke your ego; then I'll have no part of it!"

"That isn't what I want; and I'm not trying to sound ridiculous either," Al disagreed. "I've been very busy over the past month, but the one thing I'm working on all of the time is trying to fill my spirit up with nothing but happiness, joy, and love. I've come to think of it as a shield against all of the dark emotions I feel around me whenever I'm not in this room." He stood up; carried the toy he'd been working on over to the worktable where his book bag and other things were spread out across the surface of it; and set it down before turning to face her again. "I need to do all of that because I can see what I could become if I did stand up for myself the way you want me to do against James and Ollie – or anyone else that wrongs me."

"Blasting you yesterday and this morning has been a waste of time," Gwendolyn declared angrily. "You're spending all of your time having happy thoughts in your Hogwarts hermit hideaway; and still refuse to care a whit for the rest of us – or even try to spend a little time fighting for me – for us!

Al closed the gap between them until they were within inches of each other; and smiled wistfully. "I won't fight for you," he confirmed. "My new plan was to love you back into my life."

"By bribing me?" she demanded; waving a hand at the ring he still held. "What the hell were you thinking with that idiotic stunt?"

"Originally, I was going to give that to you for our fourth anniversary. I was hoping for another Christmas dance so that I could give it to you when I asked you out on that date – or on the night of that dance. When I found out that there was to be another Halloween dance; I sensed that I was supposed to ask you out and give you a chance to get to know the Wizard I'm trying to become now – and I truly am changing in ways that I hope are for the better, Gwendolyn."

"As long as I give up everything that's important to me so that I can be your sidekick again," Gwendolyn retorted – "your happy little potty-trainer!"

"I've never asked you to give up on anything that's important to you – not ever," he countered. "I also won't do anything about what everyone else wants to think about me – or us." He smiled again. "I really can't promise you anything other than that I am going to love you forever."

"Right – and how exactly did you plan on loving me back into your life?" she asked; and Al laughed.

"I am so glad that you asked!" he answered before reaching out; pulling her close; and kissing her.

Al threw himself into that non-verbal answer; let go of everything else; and snogged both of them senseless as if it was his last chance to do that – just in case that's exactly what it was! They'd eventually ended up on the sofa; and when they came up for air; he realized that they'd managed to lose track of more than a half-hour while sharing those moments of love and happiness.

"Well, that was quite an interesting part of your new plan," Gwendolyn offered breathlessly.

"Please go to the Halloween dance with me instead of James," Al asked with heart-breaking sincerity. "Whatever you decide, I'm going to continue to do what I must to be the kind of Wizard I need to be; but I will never, ever be the Wizard I'm meant to be without you."

"I'll think about it," Gwendolyn told him; and then frowned when she caught him tucking the ring into one of her pockets. "That wasn't a yes," she advised him; and he smiled and nodded.

"I know," he assured her. "If you decide to give me another chance, then keep it; and I'll know you accept the promise I'm offering you if you choose to wear it."

"And if I don't?" she half-demanded.

"Then keep it and use it for something to blast whenever you get mad at me. I made it unbreakable; so it'll work great for that – and hopefully save me from any future urges you have to hex or curse me."

Al had felt better by the time that Gwendolyn had needed to leave him and get to her Quidditch practice. Life did not just go back to normal for him because of that chat and brilliant bit of snogging; but then he didn't want his life to go back to the way it had been a month ago. While Gwendolyn was busy with everything she already had on the go for the rest of the day; he moved on with the work and studying that he wanted to do – while staying far away from the drama that he was sure would come from everything that had happened – though he could still only hope that everything would work out for what was best for everyone.

James was not happy as he headed to the Great Hall for lunch. His morning had begun brilliantly when Gwendolyn had finally come to him and asked him out – though maybe, in hindsight, he should've made her beg for a week or two instead of just agreing to go out with her so quickly! Patricia had made a big scene – though she'd at least waited to get him alone before blasting him and then storming off. He hadn't cared about that – she'd be back for more of him, as always; and he really was now on the verge of totally destroying the loser!

No, what had turned his morning from brilliant to crap was that Lily had met up with him in the common room and blasted him in front of everyone. Then Ray and Cyndia had been next – and quit the team; so now he wouldn't be able to string them along all season the way he and Ollie had planned. They hadn't tried to blast or blame him for anything – they'd just told everyone that it wasn't any fun playing on his team. Finally, Rose had just finished talking to him less than twenty minutes ago – and she'd quit the team too without even complaining about not having any fun or any other explanation. She just didn't want to play on his team.

Well, good riddance to them! Coddling them all season would've just ended up being more trouble than it was worth anyway!

"James?"

He turned and smiled wolfishly at Gwendolyn while Ollie elbowed him in the ribs and snickered.

"Hey – couldn't wait to see me again?" he asked; and laughed when Ollie snickered again.

"Not exactly," she answered seriously; her voice low so that only James and Ollie could hear her. "I wanted to talk to you before lunch – to tell you that I've changed my mind. I don't want to go to the Halloween dance with you. I'm sorry, James. I was furious with Al this morning; and thought that I could use you to get through to him – or get revenge if that didn't work to get him to stand up and fight for me."

"And I don't have a problem with that," James assured her. "We can make that happen for you right now – no need to wait for Halloween!"

"That isn't going to happen," she advised him. "I won't be going to the dance with you either – or doing anything else with you. This is my fault, and I'm especially-sorry if this has messed things up for you with Patricia; but I was wrong – and don't want to be that kind of person."

"So you're going back to the Animorphloser?" he demanded derisively. "Is he on his way here to fight me for you?"

Gwendolyn laughed; and her smile was genuine this time. "I haven't decided what to do about Al yet. He assured me that he wouldn't fight for me, but he also told me about his new plan to love me back into his life; and I'm considering giving him another chance."

"I'd be happy to love you in ways you can't even likely dream of yet – without any of the loser strings attached – not to mention in ways that he likely couldn't figure out how to do even if he had a library full of books on the subject," James offered. "Come on – take a ride on the James Potter Express! I'm on my way up to the top; while the loser is just going to be Cannon fodder!"

"No, James," Gwendolyn told him bluntly. "I've apologized – twice now. We're done here."

"You think so?" James demanded; his tone turning low and dangerously-angry as he grabbed onto Gwendolyn's arm hard-enough to keep her from walking away. "We're done when I say..." He yanked his hand back as if burned – because he had been! Gwendolyn's eyes were wide too; and then she laughed as she quickly stepped out of his reach.

"Well, what do you know?" she said as she held up her still-glowing charm bracelet. "Al might not be willing to fight to win me from you; but it seems he's always been ready to fight you to protect me – as if I've ever had a doubt about that. Thanks, James. I still have some thinking to do; but you've definitely helped me out with that a lot today!" She lost the smile and glared at Ollie when he took a step toward her. "Don't do it," she warned. "I'll cut James some slack because he has reason to be mad at me right now. That doesn't give you a free pass to attack me – and I'll remind you that I am a Prefect!"

"A Prefect B-Witch," James spat. "Leave her be," he told Ollie. "You're on probation and can't afford to get into any trouble." He sneered at Gwendolyn. "If you'd rather end up six-feet under with the loser once we're done burying him; I'll be happy to help you out with that – and picking him over me yet again is definitely your loss!"

Rose and Lily tracked Al down after lunch – while he was on the way from the Room of Requirements to the library to do some research and help some of the other teens and tweens if he could do that too. He was happy, but still cried a few tears when Lily hugged him for the first time in a month; and he held on to her for a long time before she stepped back and Rose needed to hug him next.

"You know how we're feeling; I'm not going to make a big deal of this; and I love you," Lily told him. "I'm still mad at you too; but we'll figure out a way to work this out."

"Okay," Al agreed. "Gwendolyn came and talked with me this morning. Do I have you guys to thank for that?"

"You're back together?" Lily asked excitedly; and then frowned when Al both smiled and shook his head.

"No, but she's thinking about giving me a second chance – so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best."

"As any good future Cannons' player should," Lily teased; and then hugged him again. "We did talk, but then Toni had it out with her too after Gwendolyn blasted you and before she asked James out right before breakfast." She stopped and frowned at him. "She told you about that?"

"I sensed it when she first came to see me," he admitted.

"Is that why she's thinking about giving you a second chance? You got mad about that?"

Al laughed. "No. We had a long talk; I explained that my new plan earlier this morning had been to start trying to love her back into my life; and then I tried to explain the rest of the plan to her in a snogging sort of way – for a half-hour or so." Lily began to laugh and couldn't stop for long moments while Al and Rose grinned at her.

"I love you, Al," she finally managed to wheeze out. "I don't know where I thought you were taking that; but it definitely wasn't where you ended up."

"Then let's hope it was surprising-enough to convince Gwendolyn that he's worth hanging on to after all," Rose suggested.

Al still went on to the library after spending a bit of time with Rose and Lily; and they moved on too. All of that had been brilliant for him, but he still had his now-normal dinner for one in the Room of Requirements; and then went on to spend the rest of his day either helping others or working in the Room of Requirements. His new normal continued without any changes at all on Monday and Tuesday; with the only addition to his schedule being a birthday mirror chat with Gwenog to wish her a happy fifty-third birthday. He talked with Kirley too, and since neither of them threatened to blast him at Christmas; he took that as a hopeful sign that they thought that he and Gwendolyn would be okay too.

Gwendolyn didn't surprise him when she caught up with him after breakfast on Wednesday – shortly after he got to the greenhouse; made his week by agreeing to go to the Halloween dance with him; and then she sat with him for the rest of the morning. Rose and Ray had eventually joined them, and while they took baby steps with working out how things would be between them too; it was a good start. The rumors, of course, were making the rounds at lunchtime, so his afternoon of DADA with Slytherin had Al ready to retreat to the Room of Requirements for a break from all of the hate – and too many of the Slytherin teens really did hate finding out that things might work out for 'the Royal couple' after all.

Al needed the changes toward spending more time with Gwendolyn, Rose, and the rest of their friends to happen slowly; but there was something new every day through the rest of the week. On Thursday morning; he had his first walk and talk with Rose and Lily – though they'd needed to trackhim down to do that after he'd gone to the Room of Requirements early for his morning workout. He didn't know whether they'd start doing that more often or not, since Rose did often have morning Prefect duties too; but it was another cameo bit of happiness that helped to make his day a bit brighter! Later, after last class; Gwendolyn and Rose wanted to see what he'd been doing in the Room of Requirements without them; so he took them there; talked about his Quidditch workouts and new projects; and he gave them the upgrades that he'd finished so far for RevisionWizard.

They left him alone after that – including while they had dinner in the Great Hall and he continued to do his own thing instead; and so that he could have the break from the mental cacophony for a while and do a few other things too – including eventually leaving the Room of Requirements and working with a group of kids needing help with a lost pet and two teens in study distress. On Friday, he had some company for an after-school Quidditch workout; and Gwendolyn agreed to go to Hogsmeade with him after joining him for his daily mirror chat with Malorie, Jaimie, and Lorie – a choice that was helped along after finding out that they'd be in Hogsmeade for another visit too. She once again left him on his own for the rest of the night – in part because she had Prefect duties to attend to; but then Al still needed to keep up with everything he wanted to get done every day – including the speedier completion of his weekend assignments. He had to work in his dorm room after curfew for a while to get that done ahead of their second Hogsmeade weekend – and his first outing with Gwendolyn of the school year!

Al couldn't fly to town on Saturday morning, but he did make the trip there as much fun as he could by taking Gwendolyn for a horseback ride from the castle steps to the Three Broomsticks – and they were still among the first to get there. Their arrival was fun too; since his parents and Malorie met them outside; and then Jaimie and Lorie were introduced to Al's stallion version of Sabre. Ginny took pictures; they had a few laughs; and then the babies both seemed to be astonished when they got to watch him change back into Uncle Al. He and Gwendolyn were each given a baby; they went inside the Three Broomsticks; and got started on the visit that again had a time limit of around an hour. Lily, Jonah, Rose, and Susannah joined them when they got to town; they shared the baby time while having drinks and a really awesome visit; and every minute of their time together was better for Al thanks to again having Gwendolyn there to share the love and fun with him. It was still time to say goodbye eventually – and too soon; so Harry took care of their drinks bill and they did their goodbyes in the main dining room because the adults and babies in the group were going to head home using the Floo Network.

"Thanks for taking him back," Ginny told Gwendolyn as they shared a long hug – "even if it's only on a trial basis."

"Don't thank me yet – I still reserve the right to blast him if he messes up again."

Ginny laughed. "I still reserve the right to do that to Harry; and don't ever plan on giving up that option."

"Well, I have a much better appreciation for why the former Head of the Aurors is afraid of getting you mad at him," Al offered seriously; though he smiled at Gwendolyn. "I really, really hope that I've learned my lesson."

"You're a Wizard – I wouldn't count on that," Gwendolyn told him as she made way for him to hug his mother next.

"I'd say that it wasn't fun blasting him when I couldn't leave a mark on him and he just flew off instead of standing up for himself – but it still was very entertaining," Lily interjected – "and I reserve the right to blast him again if our House doesn't win the Quidditch Cup again this year."

"What'll you do if Gwendolyn promises to blast you if her House doesn't win the Quidditch Cup instead?" Rose asked Al with a grin.

"Run – no matter who wins," Al suggested. "Thanks for coming to see us again today. Jaimie and Lorie are growing so fast; we might not recognize them by the Christmas holidays if you didn't help us out like this."

"They won't change quite that much," Ginny assured him; "but I won't deny that you're missing out on a lot of fun with them."

Their farewell chat wrapped up soon after that, and once the twins had taken their mother and grandparents with them back to Chudley; Al and Jonah were sent off to get started on the boring shopping while the girls went to have some fun. It was different doing that shopping work with Jonah, but they were a lot alike, and Al was sure that as they got older; they'd likely end up being more like brothers should be than he'd ever have happen with James regardless of how much they both might change over the years.

"I know that you're serious about not messing up again with Gwendolyn," Jonah told Al once they were on their own, "but I really hope you don't; since I didn't like my sister very much last month." He smiled ruefully. "Dad told me she's just like Mum used to be for that and can keep a hate going on for years – like Mum did with Aunt Wilda when she quit the Harpies to go play for Puddlemere."

"We still have things to work out," Al advised him, "but we both learned a lot over this last month; and I think we can do that now that we both understand our differences a lot better than I think we did before the fight." He smiled ruefully. "I certainly get now why Dad has never really been joking when he talks about taking the easy way with Mum in the days right after the War while Uncle ron took the hard way with Aunt Hermione."

"Now you're scaring me," Jonah joked; and Al laughed.

"You've nothing to worry about – Lily is still only considering you for a potential boyfriend."

"Sure – nothing to worry about – unless I mess up and she takes me off that list," Jonah countered. "Then I'll likely end up as the next Hermit of Hogwarts!"

"Fair warning – the next person that tells me it's nice to see me looking so happy again is going to get hexed," Gwendolyn only half-joked. "I get it, and I am happier; but I am not having fun finding out that everyone thinks I've been a git over the past month."

"You're not the only one getting that," Rose advised her with a smile; and nodded toward Susannah. "I'm really glad that we're getting one of our best friends back again."

"You're getting two of your best friends back," Susannah reminded her. "I hope you won't get offended; but we need to take care of your other friend better than we did." She lowered her voice for that comment; and kept it at a near-whisper. "From some of the things you've told me, I don't think any of us truly realized just how tough having all of those extra-sensory abilities is on Al – though maybe we should have known; considering how gentle we all know he is. I don't know how I'd handle things if I could sense every dark emotion and hear every nasty thought all of the time, every day without ever getting a break."

"Well, he can get a break from it now," Gwendolyn reminded her. "Maybe he'll even be able to figure out how the, um, it does it; and can make it happen anytime he needs it."

"Maybe," Susannah agreed, "but if he can't; then what he is trying to do makes sense – he's basically trying to make a love and happiness shield for himself."

"I hope he doesn't get too good at that," Lily declared. "If that gets to be as good as his other shields; he'd likely cover the entire castle with it!"

Susannah laughed. "Yeah, 'cause it'd be terrible to have everyone in the school as happy and full of love as Al wants to be," she deadpanned.

Without a Harpies' match to get back to the castle to watch; Al, Gwendolyn, and the rest of their families and friends' group were able to stay in Hogsmeade as long as they wanted – until they needed to be back at the castle by late-afternoon when the gates and school protections would be closed again. That's why they shopped longer in the morning; had a late lunch at the Three Broomsticks; and then picked up their sweets and chocolates last before heading back to the school. Staying out later also left them with less time to distribute supplies to their younger cousins and friends, so by the time they had that done; it was time to get to the Great Hall for dinner.

Al went with Rose for that meal, and earned a fair bit of unwanted attention for actually showing up with her to do that, but instead of doing something together with everyone in their study classroom; he only had Gwendolyn, Rose, and Susannah with him for part of the evening after they ate; and they went to the Room of Requirements so that he'd have the mental quiet that was helping him out so much – while also spending that time just having a long, quiet talk about everything from more details about what he'd been doing while being the temporary school hermit to his shorter and longer term plans for changing his life – and how they could all work that out while everyone else had their own goals that were just as important to them.

Some of the solutions included supporting each other while doing their own things; which for the latter part of Saturday night for all three Witches meant leaving Al in the Room of Requirements and getting on with their Prefect duties. Gwendolyn was still mad at him because they weren't doing a lot of those duties together the way she'd expected they would, but she was starting to truly understand why having that responsibility would have been so hard on him – which also explained why he'd never really been interested in being an Auror – even if he would join up and fight if there was ever the need for it again.

While Gwendolyn, Rose, and Susannah went out on Prefect patrol or did other jobs for Louis and Deanna; Al spent the rest of his evening playing with his toys and a bit of broom-making experimentation. For that, he was quickly discovering that it was a craft, that like wand-making, took time and dedication to master. Even after a month, he was still just learning the basics; and knew that it would be quite a while before he'd be anywhere-near ready to start magically building his own broom design ideas into any prototypes. He was learning fast, though; and had fun with a craft that was, for the Wizarding World, akin to Muggle craftsmen that built custom, quality things – whether that was a house, vehicle, furniture, electronic device, or anything else that required skill and experience to become a master of the trade.

Self-exploration continued to be a big part of Al's life as he again moved forward with Gwendolyn, Rose, Lily, and their friends. They all began to repair friendships; Al began to get more involved; and yet he also continued with the new things that mattered to him too – quietly helping others and making everything in his life as happy and full of love as he could. On Sunday, that included helping four of his fellow students with different things ranging from tutoring to fixing a broken wand – something that the kid had been told wasn't possible by her friends; so she hadn't tried to get help while despairing over her sudden inability to do her magic properly anymore. That hadn't been a major feat of magic, since the wand simply hadn't been broken beyond repair; but it had meant a lot to the young Witch; and Al had really felt good about his efforts.

Gwendolyn had been busy all morning with some Prefect duties and her make-up Quidditch practice; but she spent the afternoon with Al – and they were both with their study group for either weekend assignment or project research work that they did in the library. Al, Gwendolyn, and Rose wrapped up their afternoon with some Quidditch play time in the Room of Requirements that Susannah went along for to watch; and all three Witches were impressed with the tricks Al had been working on – and helped him to make that part of his day brilliantly-fun too! Dinner in the Great Hall wasn't as much fun for Al, since it meant full-immersion into the emotional mess that came along with a room filled with hundreds of teens and tweens; but then he went on to have a great evening as he and Gwendolyn resumed Sunday family night with Lily and Jonah.

They moved that to the Room of Requirements too so that Al could continue to enjoy the mental peace and quiet; they filled up those hours with music, chats with parents, Malorie, and the twins; and a bit of cuddle time while watching a mirror network show before Gwendolyn needed to do more Prefect patrol work and Al, Lily, and Jonah took care of the visit to the Owlery. They had a bit of bonus fun with Gwendolyn when she just happened to meet up with them at the Ravenclaw tower entrance while Lily was saying goodnight to Jonah; and then escorted Al and Lily back to Gryffindor tower to make sure they didn't get lost and stay out past-curfew. The girls had fun with the goodnight kiss she shared with Al, but he really hoped a lot that she didn't kiss every Wizard she caught out past-curfew like that while dropping him off at his House entrance!

Al's return to more active involvement in the lives of his friends over the next week included attending Denise Creevey's fourteenth birthday party. Lily hosted it in a classroom with help from Colin and some other friends, and while Al and Gwendolyn didn't stay long because they had a lot of homework to do too; it was the simple fact that he did get involved that was important - especially the part where he began to interact more with groups of teens while personally keeping in his happy place regardless of what was going on around him. During the rest of the week, the biggest change in his life was that Rose began doing the Quidditch workouts with him. She wanted him to add in others, but didn't ask him to do that right away; since the extra things he was doing came at the cost of giving up more and more of the quiet, self-improvement time he'd come to enjoy so much during September.

Gwendolyn, Rose, and their friends were making compromises too. They had two study sessions in the Room of Requirements with him; gave him space when he needed it most; and changed up the schedules they'd each worked out for themselves – whether that was Ray's times to hang out with Cyndia's friends or changing Prefect duty times for Gwendolyn, Rose, and Susannah. Holly's fourth birthday on Friday wasn't a big deal for most of them, but Al did make sure to spend some time with Lily's cat and give her a gift; and then he got on with the rest of his day – including his continuing effort to get most or all of his weekend assignments done on Friday night so that he could spend more of his weekend hours having fun.

The middle weekend of five for October wasn't a 'free' weekend, since there was a Harpies-Cannons match to watch, but Al had a lot more freedom than Gwendolyn did because she had a team Quidditch practice and the ongoing Prefect duties that required some of her time every day. She did both all morning on Saturday, so while she was busy with that, Al skipped the study session that Rose and Susannah led; and completed work on his magical wireless earbuds. He only made three sets to start with, and planned on sending two of them to his mother for samples to sell to one of their magical devices companies – likely the same one that was already making Mirror Messaging for them; so he'd need more time before he could make more to give to Gwendolyn, Rose, Lily, and Jonah. He didn't know whether he'd make many more sets than that, but then he also expected his magical earbuds to be in stores in time for Christmas; since they really were amazing!

After taking the morning for himself, Al spent the afternoon and evening with Gwendolyn – and part of the afternoon with their usual gang of game-watching siblings, cousins, and friends. That didn't end up being all afternoon because the Harpies won their match over the Cannons in a bit under three hours – and Gabrielle caught the snitch to seal the three-eighty to twenty victory about five minutes after Santini was carried off to his bed in St. Mungo's because one of his own team's Beaters messed up and bashed in his head with a bludger. Everyone watching the match was sure that losing all of the extra time with Gabrielle would hurt Santini more than the bludger hit that knocked him out – but not until after he woke up again.

While the rest of the teens in the study classroom stayed and watched the other match of the day still in progress; Al and Gwendolyn spent the rest of the afternoon together in the Room of Requirements – and then did the same for part of the evening until she needed to move on to her scheduled Prefect duties for the rest of the night. Some snogging was involved, but other than that first major snogging moment on the first Sunday in October; they were taking that part of their relationship slowly too – mostly because they both wanted to put more focus on other parts of their relationship – along with seriously working out how they were going to juggle everything they each wanted now so that they could make their relationship work and avoid hitting any future roadblocks that might just mess them up again.

With a week to go until his first match of the season, Jonah had an extra team practice on Sunday morning, but then he and Lily also had a bonus Seeker duel on Sunday afternoon while Al and Gwendolyn had a Chaser duel against Ray and Cyndia with Hugo on their 'team' and Rose playing in goal for Ray and Cyndia. That had been the entertainment highlight for Al, but he'd also spent time studying in the morning and helping some teens and tweens along the way; and the Sunday night family night was a near-repeat of the one they'd had a week ago – including the group mirror chat with Malorie and the twins that might become a weekly event if they could work that out – and Jaimie and Lorie continued to cooperate and make that mirror chat part of their Sunday night bedtime routine.

In the week leading up to the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff junior team match, Al did a pretty good job juggling everything with only one bit of weird and awkward – Louis' eighteenth birthday. That had more to do with sensing his cousin's own, ongoing guilt – a feeling that was brought back to the fore thanks to the gifts that he was still given from Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, Hugo, and Lily – feelings that didn't change the fact that he was also happy to now have a spot on the team now that Rose had quit. While Louis' sense of guilt was real-enough, he managed to justify his own actions – or inaction easily-enough, and compared to his developing new relationship with Deanna; he usually didn't even think about the Quidditch drama at all. They were, by then, a semi-official couple, and since they seemed to be a really good match; Al was happy for them. With everything Louis had on the go, that party wasn't a major event; and Al, Gwendolyn, Rose, and the rest of their study group friends that stopped in to wish Louis the best didn't stay long anyway before moving on to their own evening study session.

The rest of the week through to game day was quiet for Al. He did his own thing a bit more on both days, but had fun with Gwendolyn here and there too – particularly as she rediscovered what she loved most about Astronomy classes with Al – and that wasn't just sneaking a soft kiss or two during the class! While Al didn't study with their group on Friday evening; they were all getting used to the need for those changes; and it was proving to be good for all of them. Sure, Al was the only one getting all of his weekend assignments finished by the end of the night; but it helped the others to learn not to rely quite so much on his eidetic memory and learn to get faster at doing the research instead – particularly research they could do using RevisionWizard. Al still had to do some work from bed to get his weekend assignments finished, but he was still sleeping long-before Ray went to bed for the night after staying up late with Cyndia; and he was awake at the normal time so that he could get through his morning workout and go for a fly around the school grounds before having breakfast in the Great Hall and then meeting up with Gwendolyn ahead of Jonah's big game.

"Maybe you'd have been better off hiding somewhere while watching this match," Rose leaned in and whispered to Al when she spotted James and Ollie making their way up into the Gryffindor section of the stadium.

"I'm surprised they're here at all," Gwendolyn interjected. "They slept through Lily's entire match – or at least that's what we heard they did. Wasn't there any reason to party last night – or did they just run out of party juice?"

"They're here because of me – of us," Al advised her quietly. "I'm only surprised that it's taken this long for James to try and have more of that kind of fun at my expense." He smiled at Gwendolyn. "I guess we'll get to find out how much progress I'm making with the be-happy-at-all-times plan this morning."

Gwendolyn laughed. "Maybe we'll find out how well we're doing with the part of that plan where we each do the things that make us happy and accept and support each other."

"Does that mean that Al can't counter anything we do – the way he helped Rita that day you blasted her?" Lily asked with a grin. "I like that a lot if it's one of those new changes!"

Al actually thought about that for a long moment even as he joined in for the round of laughs. "We should seriously talk about that later," he suggested, "but for now; let's tentatively say that I'll agree with that except if there's a risk of you causing permanent harm or life-threatening injuries."

"We can work with that," Gwendolyn promised with another laugh. "Maybe you'll even be able to be happy with that – if you're just a spectator instead of a participant in the fight."

"I still don't get how Al plans on playing Quidditch in the show if he isn't going to fight anymore," Lily told them seriously.

"I'm going to convince Rose to build a team of players that want to have fun and be the best they can be while doing that – and always playing by the rules," Al advised her. I haven't suggested that'll be easy – especially when that'll mean finding ways to have fun even when the players on some of the other teams won't be like that while playing against us."

"No wonder I'd rather play for the Harpies," Lily suggested with a grin. "They don't mind if you get mad and turn your opponents into bugs."

There wasn't really a pause in their chat then, but they took that down a few notches and watched as James and Ollie led their entourage up toward and past them – and then they sat three rows behind Rose, Lily, and her team mates and their friends. Al was across the aisle and sitting next to Gwendolyn while she was surrounded by her Ravenclaw team and their friends. James didn't try tearing into Al or Gwendolyn right away – he waited for the rest of his team mates to join him; and for Colin to start his pre-game show.

"We can all ignore the midget with the giant's voice," James said while pretending to bellow that out while only actually speaking loudly-enough to be heard by Al, Gwendolyn, and everyone around them too as well as his own group. "The only thing you need to know about today's match is that Gryffindor is currently in first place; and we'll still be there at the end of the season!"

"Unless your baby potty-sister messes that up for us," Ollie told him with a sneer he directed at the back of Lily's head.

"True-that," James agreed with a nod and laugh. "She did manage to avoid blowing it for us against Slytherin, though; and she should be able to keep from messing up in her other matches too; since the competition is so pathetic in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. My new friends in Slytherin may give us the only competition we'll have all season – and they won't have a chance against us in November!"

"True-that too," Ollie mimicked, "but the mouse with the big roar is about to bring out thes pathetic excuses for Quidditch teams; so you should get started on the honest player introductions instead of the load of dung he'll be spewing to make everyone feel happy."

"I can do that for you – and he's going with Ravenclaw first so that they don't feel bad about being alphabetically-challenged," James said. "Leading the way is my potty-sister's not-my-boyfriend Captain of the Ravenclaw team, Jonah the whale; along with his firstie cousin and their team's new Keeper, Meg Rivers. For those of you who don't know this, he's continuing a tradition of sucking up to his family that was started by the potty-trainer; though I've never actually bothered to find out whether the tactic actually works to get better Christmas gifts or not!"

"I'd say it worked for Gwendolyn," Lily suggested quietly. "It's gotten her two Christmases without James around to mess them up for her."

"Moving on, since there's nothing of worth to talk about in the first row; we have Ravenclaw's trio of Chasers. Don't bother learning their names – they're even more forgettable than their Captain and Keeper! Finally, we have the Ravenclaw Beaters bringing up the rear – just as they're likely to do in the battle for best junior Beaters this year despite the fact that all of the best Beaters from last season have moved on to the senior teams level."

"Isn't one of those Beaters one of Jonah the Whale's cousins too?" Ollie interjected. "That shoots down your sucking up to the family theory."

"Not really," James disagreed. "He's likely just shooting for favorite nephew with their Mum by picking the cousin that wants to grow up to be a Keeper like his Aunt instead of a Beater like his own mother."

"That's a stretch," Ollie told him, "but Hufflepuff's up next; so don't let me stop you while on a roll!"

"Okay, but we're already at the bottom of the junior team Quidditch hill; so that won't take long. They probably have the best of those lousy four sets of Beaters; and the rest of their team will be useless and forgettable. Their Beaters lead the way, since Lee Johnson is Captain; their forgettable Chasers follow; and they're flying in reverse order to Ravenclaw with Luke Will-Never-Be a real Seeker and John Whit-less at Keeper. It's a good thing that it's a nice fall day – we'll be comfortable while cuddling with our girls and having a nap through the imminent snooze-fest that we're about to see starting in a few minutes – if Mr. Peakes doesn't put us to sleep with his fair-play speech first!"

With a changing perception of the world around him, Al found that he could listen to his brother's commentary without putting too much of a dent into his happiness – even when he took shots at Gwendolyn, Lily, or their cousins and friends. He also found it interesting to sense the varied reactions from the other teens and tweens around them to James' commentary and supposed expert analysis. He didn't do that to be judgemental, but to compare it to his own thoughts and feelings now – and how he reacted too often in the past. It was also, however, interesting to note that outward and inner reactions to James could be very different too – or exactly the same for the teens that didn't try to hide their real feelings. It might surprise some that the 'bad' teens were more-likely to be true to their inner selves; while some of the 'good' teens hid their darker inner nature – or simple enjoyment they derived from the misfortune of others.

There was soon a Quidditch match to watch, though; and Al enjoyed watching the game with Gwendolyn – and found that he loved it even more now that he was trying to do everything from a happier place. There was extra fun with watching the players on both teams too because he truly didn't know much about many of the new players and hadn't seen how much the returning players had progressed over the summer either. He talked about that with Gwendolyn and the others around them – and that was usually a fun counterpoint to James' play-by-play – and even Colin's announcing too.

"I'm going to give the early nod to John for Keeper over Meg," Al said as Madison's younger brother passed the quaffle out to Drew Summers after making a good save on a shot from Alyssa Graves. "Meg is playing well in her first school match, though; and doing that against some good Chasers too."

"I'll give you that," Gwendolyn agreed. "Alyssa, Chris, and Bryson are working together a bit better, though; so I think it will even out."

"That's good for your team," Al agreed and added. "Luke is good, but he's another defensive Seeker – quick reactions to his opponent while not going on the offense very much at all. He might not have much of a knack for spotting the snitch except at close range; though I'm not sure about that."

"He might just be doing that intentionally because Jonah has a faster broom," Lily suggested. "You're right about his reaction time, so since he could get a jump on Jonah by going after the snitch; I think he might just be waiting until it gets closer to him so that Jonah doesn't have time to catch up and pass him. The problem is that Jonah then spots the snitch before Luke gets to the point where he can make his move first."

Al nodded. "Okay – you could be right about that. It's still advantage-Ravenclaw either way. Hufflepuff gets the slight edge for Beater, though. Lee and Katrina are a draw; but Greta's quite a bit better than Andy." Andy Goldstein was Mark's younger brother, and while he was playing well-enough; he was having a tough time keeping up with all three of the other Beaters – which was why Katrina was having him play defense instead of trying to get him to do too much and risking having him making mistakes that might harm their own players.

"From what Mark has told us, Andy's a good Chaser, but likes playing Beater; so he tried out for that job instead – even though he's a bit small yet for a Beater."

"So he didn't do that just so he could be Katrina's Beater partner?" Lily teased. "That's what we've heard from some of the firsties."

"That's probably the firstie boys starting that rumor," Stephanie suggested. "The girls would be more-likely to gossip about whether he'll get together with Meg because they're the only two firsties on our junior team."

"How did we get here from where we started with talking about how well the players were doing in the match so far?" Al asked in amusement.

"Well, we can't sit here and help the competition with analyzing our team for Lily and her team," Stephanie countered. "They'll have to do that work on their own – and we'll hope they'll do that very badly."

"Right back at you," Lily told her with a grin. "We're not going to talk about what we see with your team so that you can tell them and give them a chance to fix things before playing against us." She turned her attention to Al and pretended to frown. "Ditto that for you. Good sportsmanship does not extend to helping Ravenclaw out today."

"Well, in that case – have fun with the teen and tween gossip; and I'll just go back to shutting up and watching the game," Al told her.

The girls were happy to do that; and Al was able to stay in a happy place thanks to getting to watch an awesome Quidditch battle while cuddling with Gwendolyn. In the first hour, the lead changed hands twice, but Hufflepuff took a ten point lead into the second hour; and Ravenclaw wasn't able to do more than get back to a tie after that. All six Chasers were putting on a show, and while John and Meg made a lot of sometimes-spectacular saves; some great goals were scored too as the match rolled on and on and Jonah and Luke continued their Seeker battle without any hints that either Wizard was gaining an advantage over the other.

Lunch was made available near the end of the fourth hour, and that ended up being a very big deal for the match. Lee and Jonah agreed to a time-out for food and drinks just minutes into the fifth hour. Al helped Gwendolyn with picking up that food and drinks for her brother and his team mates; and since they did that before eating; they nearly missed the end of the match while they were out getting food too. They did catch the big finale just moments after they re-entered the stadium with their lunches and drinks – and only because Al quickly directed Gwendolyn's attention to the Seeker duel.

"Note to Luke – be careful what you eat during time-outs," Al said quietly with a grin as they watched Jonah gain the advantage in the run for the snitch while Luke had missed his chance to react quickly-enough to have a chance to stop him. Jonah still needed to make the catch; but Al knew he wasn't going to miss before watching the catch happen.

"Why do you say that?" Gwendolyn asked; and Al laughed.

"He's feeling a bit queasy right now," he explained. "Apparently he needs to wait a bit after meals before doing any extreme flying."

"Seriously?" Gwendolyn asked; since he'd made that sound more like a joke than a fact.

"Definitely," Al agreed. "The only way that would work for him would be if he lost his lunch on his opponent and then got a chance to catch the snitch himself."

"That's kinda gross – and funny," Gwendolyn told him with a laugh. "Yes!" she shouted as Jonah ended the match and gave her House the three-sixty to two-thirty, come-from-behind victory. "I'm glad we got back in time to watch that!"

"Me too," Al agreed. "If you want to stay here; I can go and get our things from our seats and meet you out on the pitch after I do that."

"I'll let you – but only because you can fly there and back if you want to do that."

Al grinned at her. "That would be fun," he agreed; and she laughed as he handed her his drink. "I'll be right back."

With that; he changed forms; flew up to where they'd been sitting; changed back while everyone around him either laughed or made fun of him; and then he rounded up their things and flew back with everything as the laughter and razzing continued after he left again. Doing that earned him a lot of attention, but it really had been fun – and he'd loved how happy it had made Gwendolyn too. She was at center pitch with her brother and junior team friends when he landed again; so there was another round of laughter and more-good-natured razzing – including because of the hug and kiss Gwendolyn shared with him in thanks for running that errand and the entertainment too.

While the Hufflepuff players and their fans were disappointed by the abrupt end to the match so soon after the time-out, they had gotten to play or watch a brilliant match, and with most of the afternoon left to go; they were all also going to move on to other entertainments – including a celebration party for Ravenclaw House. Gwendolyn had to go to that party in support of her junior team – especially since she was now both a member of the senior team and a Prefect, but before she had to do that; she had Al stay with her for the on-field fun and then the walk to Ravenclaw tower. He was happy to do all of that; and then he was ready for the chance for some mental peace in the Room of Requirements after a total of a bit more than five hours of intense 'noise' while with a stadium full of teens, tweens, and the smaller group of adults visiting the school to watch the match.

He didn't spend the entire afternoon on his own. Once he'd had a break and chance to get his mind and spirit re-centered; he went out around the castle in search of teens and tweens he could help; and also did a bit of research in the library while offering a bit of tutoring here and there too. That kept him busy until near-dinnertime; he surprised Gwendolyn by meeting her outside of Ravenclaw tower; and walked with her to the Great Hall before they split up to have that meal. Gwendolyn was able to spend a bit of time with him after dinner too, but had more Prefect work to do than usual because the Ravenclaw Prefects had the afternoon off for their party while the other House Prefects – including Rose and Susannah – picked up the slack. They didn't go off on their own – they got together with Lily, Jonah, and a bunch of their friends for a play evening that included a portable pool and mirror network show watching.

Gwendolyn in a swimsuit time was always a happy place for Al, so he had fun with that; the cuddle time that followed; and then the goodnight hugs and kisses after he walked her home – though she would just be moving on to a Prefect patrol instead of staying in Ravenclaw tower for the rest of the night. Once he was on his own again, Al went to the Room of Requirements for a while; did some work on an Animorphmagus Christmas toy; and then went back to the classroom again in time to help with the clean-up and to get his sofas, mirror, and portable pool. He was back in his dorm room a few minutes ahead of curfew; got ready for bed before any of the other guys were there; and went off to sleep after exchanging goodnight mirror messages with Gwendolyn.

Sunday wasn't a busy day for Al, but he did end up having a lot on the go – possibly even-more than Gwendolyn did with her studying, Prefect duties, and make-up Quidditch practice. The mirror chat for his Aunt Angelina's forty-fourth birthday didn't take up much time, but it was a great little blast of fun because Lily and Roxanne rounded up all of the cousins on both sides of her family to do that; so they had the Johnson cousins in on that bit of entertainment too. While Al studied in the morning with Gwendolyn, Rose, and Susannah; he spent the second-half of the morning doing his quiet help-work around the castle while Gwendolyn was busy with her team. She had other things to do in the afternoon; so he spent half of that time in the Room of Requirements; and the rest in the library – including with Rose, Susannah, and some other OWL-year friends doing research or weekend revision.

Dinner in the Great Hall was a mix of good and bad for him; but family night with Gwendolyn, Lily, and Jonah was great – and they all especially liked the joint chat time that was with Harry and Ginny as well as Malorie and the girls because they'd all been together when they'd called Malorie after having dinner and a play evening together. They had music time with Kirley; a lengthy Quidditch chat with Gwenog that was more about Jonah's success than news from the Harpies as they were getting ready for what would hopefully be a better Halloween weekend match against the Arrows than the one they'd had against the Falcons a year ago. Al and Gwendolyn did the visit to the Owlery on their own while Jonah walked Lily home; and then Gwendolyn walked Al home too before meeting up with Rose and going on curfew patrol. Al didn't go right off to sleep after getting to his dorm room because he ended up talking with a couple of the guys who had wanted to turn in early too, but it wasn't too much later than he'd planned when he was able to turn out his light and crash for the night so he could get well-rested for the last school week of October.

By Monday morning, Quidditch was temporarily forgotten as all of the Halloween weekend fun took top billing on the school gossip network. Al was looking forward to their Hogsmeade weekend, the Harpies' match, the dance, and Halloween as much as most of the teens and tweens in the castle, but he also had a lot of work to keep up with – including his continuing mission toward self-improvement; so he kept busy and actually spent a bit less time doing other things or spending time with his friends. Gwendolyn, Rose, and Susannah were all busy too, though it was with different things – like Quidditch, Prefect duties, and the Slug Club Halloween party that Professor Slughorn hosted on Friday evening. Al kept up with his daily doses of quiet good deeds around the castle, but he was getting better-organized with that; mentally sought-out the kids in need as much as possible during meals in the Great Hall; and then worked out how to help them while also keeping up with his classes, studies, and the rest of his work and play time. He added one, not-so-small special project to his to-do list, but while he needed to put some time and magical effort into it; he was working on that as part of his journey toward a happy and joy-filled life.

He was coming up on the end of two months since beginning that life-change; so it wasn't a surprise to him that he thought about that a lot and evaluated how he was doing so far. There was no doubt that he was having more fun in his classes and felt happier even when he had to deal with dark emotions. That was better-still now that he could once again share in that happiness with Gwendolyn, Rose, and the rest of his friends, but it truly was the internal changes that were making the biggest difference. His study skills were growing in what felt like leaps and bounds, and while that was partially thanks to the improvements he was continuing to make to RevisionWizard; his improving ability to focus without letting the distractions get in the way had the biggest impact on how well and quickly he could do his assignments. Not having Quidditch, Prefect duties, or the Slug Club party was also why he had his weekend revision finished by the time he went to sleep on Friday night – and he did that long-before that Slug Club party even ended!

A good night of rest had everything to do with why he was the happiest person in the Great Hall at breakfast, and while he didn't say a word about that; he actually knew for fact that it was true. Rose and Gwendolyn weren't far behind him on that, but he'd needed to help each of them with a bit of silent healing that went along with the good morning hugs; or they'd have been as over-tired as most of their fellow Slug Club members were – or all of the teens and tweens that had stayed up late getting an early start to the Halloween weekend fun. It maybe wasn't nice to admit it, but it was still true that Al had more fun at breakfast because James and Ollie didn't make it to the Great Hall before he was ready to line up to be set free to head for Hogsmeade – and he and Gwendolyn did that early so they could be among the first to leave – and again go there while having a bit of fun horsing around. That had been entirely because they wanted to get there early and meet up with his parents, Malorie, and the twins, but while he couldn't give everyone a ride; Al did help to make sure that the friends that wanted to be able to run there faster along with Rose and Lily could do that if they wanted before he took Gwendolyn on their speedy little trip to the Three Broomsticks.

"Are you shooting for a new record with every run to town?" Ginny teased as she and Harry met them outside. "We just got here a couple of minutes ago."

"Al's just working on having fun; and taking me along for the ride," Gwendolyn joked as she stepped up to Ginny for a hug while Al was still changing back to human form. "We'll need to do something else next time; or I'll freeze solid going that fast during the winter. That was a bit on the chilly side for comfort."

"Which is why we kept the girls inside so they'll stay warm," Ginny advised the two teens. "Let's go and join them; and you can order hot drinks if you need to warm up while we're having our visit."

"Will Jaimie and Lorie be done with going along for Harpies' Quidditch matches for the winter now too?" Gwendolyn asked; and Ginny nodded.

"Yes, but we're thinking about taking turns so Malorie can still go to a match or three. She's not sure whether she wants to do that – except for doing at least one winter match so she can find out for herself what they're like – and that'll help with her research work."

"Well, she'd be able to get a lot of Cannons fans at winter matches if she could come up with a way for them to be more comfortable," Gwendolyn suggested. "In fact, if she could do that; I expect that all of the fans for the other teams they play against would want to buy seats in the comfortable side of the stadiums."

"That would be good for the Cannons," Ginny agreed; "but I don't see that happening anytime soon."

Gwendolyn laughed. "We don't see the Cannons winning their next championship in Rose's lifetime – or we wouldn't have taken our side of her bet on that."

"I may have hedged that bet a time or ten," Ginny admitted with a grin. "That still doesn't mean I think it'll happen anytime soon either – just that it's more-likely to happen in Rose's lifetime than not."

"Even if you're the Seeker on Rose's team?" Harry joked.

"Even then," Ginny agreed. "It's been more than a decade since I last played in the show; I'm older; and have no idea whether I could handle the grind and hard work all season and still have anything left by the end – let alone keep going into the playoffs."

"It won't be like that for Rose's team," Al advised her. "I'm going to convince Rose to make every day at work fun."

Ginny laughed. "Well, we'd all love that; but you've just convinced me to re-hedge those bets the other way."

They were heading into the Three Broomsticks by then; Al ended up leading the way to where Malorie was sitting at a table near one of the fireplaces; and happily took temporary custody of Jaimie while Gwendolyn was cuddling with Lorie less than a half-minute later. Thanks to his help, Rose, Lily, Jonah, and Susannah weren't far behind; but the rest of their friends moved on to get started on their shopping because they did all want to be back at the castle again in time for the Harpies-Arrows match. Gwendolyn, Rose, and Lily also had hair appointments, but that just meant that they were first to say goodbye before going to do that; and Al got to stay for last cuddles with the twins before they headed home with their mother and grandparents and he went with Jonah to get started on their supply shopping.

While Jonah's list wasn't very long; Al had a lot to get; since he was doing all of the extra shopping for the girls and their younger cousins and friends – or most of it. There were a few things that the younger girls did not want him to help out with – and they'd likely hate knowing that he was aware of those things that they didn't want him getting for them. While a lot of that work was tedious, Al and Jonah had fun together – though they split up a few times so they could get more of the work finished more-quickly. That worked for Al because he wanted to make some purchases that wouldn't be noticed by his friends; and got that done while on his own.

Gwendolyn, Lily, and the other girls met up with Al, Jonah, and some of the other guys in time for an early lunch at the Three Broomsticks; they headed back to the castle as a group after that; and then they eventually all ended up in their usual study classroom in time to set up and catch the tail-end of Lee's pre-game show and predictions for the day before settling in on the sofas to watch the big game. As Al sat and cuddled with Gwendolyn, he knew that most of their friends and some of their cousins didn't even know or notice the changes to their relationship – or his with everyone else. The being happy was chalked up to getting back together with Gwendolyn; all was well; and that was as deep as it went.

That wasn't true, though, and while he enjoyed the entertainment that went along both with the Quidditch match and the fun going on in the room around him; Al's happy place within came along with an ongoing self-diagnostic that included analyzing and choosing the way he interacted with everyone that absolutely was different. He stayed away from talking about himself – particularly if any sort of bragging could be construed. He tried to find a middle-ground for involvement in the conversations going on around him to be more of an active participant, but while he added to the fun; he tried to only speak positively. That certainly wasn't always easy, but he kept working at it; and wasn't going to give up on purging the personal negativity.

Having that ongoing analysis happening silently in his mind while the Harpies and Arrows were playing a really great match had him musing about how well he'd be able to keep that up when faced agan by other challenges in life. Just today he'd been teased about the perceived impossibility of having a happy work life combined with a successful Quidditch team. Could he remain happy all of the time without winning too? Rose certainly wouldn't put up with that for long for sure, but then he liked to win quite a lot; and had yet to experience what it was like to lose. That egotistical thought had him laughing silently, but the point was valid; and worth thinking about – not that he'd think about losing matches intentionally just to find out what that was like whenever he next did get to play for a school or league team. Envisioning being the happiest player in the league on the worst team was just amusing, though; and it was much easier – and happier – to picture himself as the happiest member of the league Champion Cannons!

If the Arrows players were having visions like that; they got in the way of winning their Halloween weekend match. Okay, Gabrielle got in the way of that; and she caught the snitch to earn the win for her team just a few minutes into the fourth hour. The two-seventy to eighty score proved that the Arrows played their best in a good, defensive battle, but Halloween fun must have been a priority for everyone once the game had ended because not even the reporters seemed to want to drag out the post-game action. The girls in the room with Al certainly wanted to move on to get ready for the dance, so they did that; while Al had a couple of the guys stay to help him with the clean-up.

"Okay, they're gone," Ray said with a feigned sigh of relief. "What are we doing this year for the girls? I was so busy this morning that I forgot to ask."

"You mean like the snapdragons we did last year?" Al asked; and Ray nodded. "I didn't plan on doing anything like that."

"If that's a Halloween scare; it isn't funny," Ray warned seriously; and Al laughed.

"I'm not trying to be scary – that's just the truth. I have a gift for Gwendolyn this year – not flowers."

"I am so dead," Ray predicted morosely. "Why didn't I just pick up flowers while we were in town?"

"We could raid the greenhouses," Jonah suggested with a grin. "Do you think she'd like to try wearing a baby Mandrake? That'd be scary for Halloween."

"And knock her out in a bad way," Al added. "You can't really start a date with – here, put these protective earmuffs on over the hair you just spent an hour getting just the way you wanted it."

"Good point," Jonah conceded. "It's a good thing I have a back-up plan for Lily."

"A very good thing," Al agreed before turning his attention to Ray. What did you have in mind? We might be able to put something together for you if it isn't too elaborate or we'd need something we can't get around here."

"Would it be too last year for another snapdragon?" Ray asked half-hopefully.

"Definitely," Al assured him. "Even if we had it do something different; you're forgetting that we made a bunch of them last year to keep everyone from finding out about who has been making them."

"Maybe you could carve a pumpkin, shrink it down to pin size; and make it do something that Cyndia would find funny or a bit scary or both," Jonah suggested.

"We could get a pumpkin easily-enough," Al advised Ray as he thought about it. "If we helped you with something like that; what would you want it to do? I wouldn't advise one that eats puking pastilles when you'll be the person dancing with Cyndia all night – and that sort of thing would definitely be a turn off when you're hanging out in the common room later." He turned to Jonah at what he sensed from him and laughed. "That's brilliant. Gwendolyn might even let me do it – just for the laughs."

"What's brilliant?" Ray asked in confusion. "He didn't say anything."

"No, but I was thinking that it would be brilliant if the pumpkin pin changed into a carriage at the end of the dance – sort of a reverse Cinderella thing; and I was picturing Sabre pulling it up to the entrance to Gryffindor tower from the Great Hall."

"I think we have a winning idea," Al decided after sensing Ray's reaction. "Let's get this done and get to working on that. We don't have all that long; but I think we can get it done."

Al needed to put all of the magical muscle into the effort for that pumpkin pin, but he insisted that Ray make the jack-o-lantern; Jonah helped with rounding up a few things that they'd need to make the horse and carriage gimmick work; and they eventually split up to get ready for the dance too. Even with that added bit of action; Al still made it to the hallway outside of the Ravenclaw entrance with time to spare – and crossed paths with Jonah along the way as he headed for Gryffindor tower to pick up his date. Gwendolyn couldn't surprise him with her dance date gift for him, but then even if he couldn't sense so much of everything going on around him; he'd have been suspicious when she had a small entourage with her when she stepped out into the hall and was smiling brilliantly at his reaction to seeing her – and seeing the shiny new ring on her finger.

"I love you," he whispered as they shared a long, enthusiastic hug. "Thank-you!"

"I love you too – forever," she promised right back before kissing him. "Are we going to have a brilliant night; or should I keep my wand at the ready?"

"We're going to have a brilliant night regardless of what happens," Al assured her – "or at least I already have had one." He handed her the gift he'd brought for her; and she happily tore into the wrapping paper. She laughed when she opened the box and found the pair of earrings inside that matched the ring. "You were pretty sure of yourself, weren't you?" she asked archly; and Al laughed happily.

"Actually, I thought that'd be a not-so-subtle hint. You surprised me – I've just had a bit of time to have fun with that before you got here."

"Well, we were really hoping for more of a show; but that's sweet," Renee told him. "Let's get going. I don't want to take whatever spots are left for dinner this year."

"I'd suggest that Al and I will save thatshow for later because we're not into public snogging, but I'll have Prefect patrol after the dance; so we'll have to see about making some time for that tomorrow."

"Sure," Toni said in disbelief. "You'll have loads of time for that while we catch up on all of the weekend revision we haven't even started yet; the Halloween fun around here; and your make-up Quidditch practice and whatever Prefect duties you'll have tomorrow."

"Scary and true," Gwendolyn conceded with a sigh. "Maybe I should deputize Al and take him along on patrol tonight."

"Or get him to stay out past curfew; catch him; and then snog him senseless until he promises to never break the rules again," Renee suggested with a grin.

"Do not start making jokes about the hundreds of reasons for why that would be a very bad idea," Gwendolyn warned her friends.

"Ditto that for any guy in this group that is now thinking about breaking curfew tonight just so that Gwendolyn can catch them," Toni added with a grin and then an elbow for Michael. "You included, buddy."

"I was just thinking that you could pretend to be a Prefect and catch me out past curfew," he protested; earning a round of laughs. "I love Gwendolyn too – but that's in a sister or cousin sort of way."

"You are off the hook," Toni advised him with a grin – "and we'll talk later about your suggestion."

That entertaining little start to their date had been a lot of fun for Al and Gwendolyn; and they continued to enjoy themselves as they had dinner with their friends. He focused his attention on Gwendolyn, but also spent some time quietly making sure that the Halloween fun did not extend to any nasty, hurtful pranks or ambushes. He didn't make an issue of doing it – he just made sure that none of that nastiness happened. Sometimes, that was as simple as banishing a prankster's wheezes, potions, or other magical objects; while at other times, he had to intervene more-directly while never being found out by anyone other than Gwendolyn. He was usually too close for her to miss what he was doing, but she whole-heartedly approved of his efforts – and it saved her the need to go into Prefect mode to deal with the consequences if he hadn't stopped those tricks from playing out.

While that felt great to help make the night better for others, it was being happy and helping Gwendolyn to enjoy her dance that mattered most to Al – and they truly did have an amazing night – including near the end of it when Gwendolyn had to take her turn on patrol. Al went with her for that while the dance was still going on; so that gave him a chance to tell her about the Halloween dance surprise that he and Jonah had helped Ray with – and that they'd be taking to the next level immediately following the dance. That's why Gwendolyn made sure that she was patrolling the entrance hall as the dance ended – and while Al got ready and in position for the big finale of Ray and Cyndia's date. He was ready to go when Ray escorted Cyndia out of the Great Hall; would have laughed if he could have at her reaction as her pumpkin pin made a joke about fresh air and then detached itself from her dress; and then it began to shimmer, grow, and transform into a beautiful crystal carriage!

"What – oh, it's beautiful!" Cyndia gasped; and then laughed when the black stallion appeared – like magic; since nobody noticed the Animorph-mouse scamper into place while watching the carriage transfiguration. She hugged and kissed Ray enthusiastically. "Ray – this is brilliant!"

"Your carriage awaits, milady," Ray said grandly even as the harness was magically attaching to the beautiful black stallion. "Shall we go for a ride before we retire to the common room for the night?"

"I would love to," Cyndia assured him.

He helped her up into the carriage and onto the cushioned seat; climbed up next and sat next to her; and didn't have to close the door because it did so magically. There was a lot of magic going on that probably had all of the amazed and amused spectators trying to figure out who was behind it, but they wouldn't have been able to do that; and the spectacle was entertainment-enough anyway. Al had to navigate around all of the teens and tweens in the entrance hall, but he turned around; trotted to the front doors; turned again, and then whinnied to get everyone's attention before heading toward the main staircase; picking up speed; and then racing up it with some magical, levitation assistance that kept the ride luxuriously-smooth for Cyndia and Ray.

He didn't just head up to Gryffindor tower – he took them on a long ride that took them all around the castle on a total of five different floors. Some parts of the ride were just a tiny-bit Halloween scary in a rollercoaster sort of way, but Al had a blast giving his friends that adventure – and didn't even mind the few snogging moments they shared along the way as Cyndia took time to thank Ray for the brilliant surprise. They had a post-dance curfew time limit for that fun, so they needed to be back at their common room ahead of that- which was when Al ran into the only problem he hadn't really thought about ahead of time – the crowd of teens and tweens that wanted to be there to witness their arrival.

"You didn't have to wait up for us, Mums and Dads," Ray joked as he got out of the carriage and then helped Cyndia to step down. "We did promise to be home on time!"

"Maybe they're hoping to get rides too," Cyndia suggested; but then turned her head and watched as the carriage shimmered again and began to shrink. Some of the teens – including Lily and Jonah – saw Al take that opportunity to disappear; but most of the gawkers watched as the carriage turned back into a pumpkin pin – but this time it was an orange-colored; crystal pumpkin-faced carriage that was exquisite and perfect in every detail by the time it floated over to Cyndia and dropped into the palm of her hand when she held it up just beneath it.

"Merlin!" she breathed; and then laughed and rather seriously thanked Ray in a non-verbal sort of way.

"Okay – show's over," Lily called out loudly. "For those of you here from other Houses; your Prefects will escort you back so you don't get into trouble for being out past curfew. Gryffidndors – get into your common room – or up to the bathrooms for those of us in need of a cold shower!"

"Ravenclaws with me," Gwendolyn added with a grin as lily's comments earned a roar of laughter. "Hurry up and kiss your date goodnight, Jonah – I'd hate to need to take points from you for being out past curfew; but I'll do it if I must!"

Lily didn't give Jonah the chance to decide; kissed him rather soundly; and then happily headed for her common room while there were more laughs and some jokes directed at them – particularly when Gwendolyn pretended that she needed to steer her brother toward Ravenclaw tower as if he was too befuddled to know which way to go. Al witnessed all of that; but stayed invisible through until he was in his dorm room to avoid attracting any attention – or diverting it from Ray and Cyndia. All that mattered to him was that Jonah's idea had worked out brilliantly for their friends – and had really been a blast to do for them too! That had been a lot of magical and physical exertion, though, and at the end of a very long, busy day, so while Ray and Cyndia stayed up late; he got ready for bed; exchanged goodnight mirror messages with Gwendolyn while she was still out on patrol; and then he happily went off to sleep.

Al woke up early, got ready for the day well-ahead of any of his roommates; and hurried on to the Room of Requirements for his morning martial arts workout. He did a short version of that; and then got a sofa ready; sat down with a drink; and called his father.

"Hello, Al," Harry said as he answered the mirror chat request. "I expected your call a bit later. Couldn't you sleep?"

"I wanted to be in time for your visit to the cemetery," Al answered solemnly. "I slept fine; but always seem to have dreams about you and my grandparents each year."

"Me too," Harry stated; though he knew that wasn't news for his younger son. "I was thinking that it can't be forty years since they died, but we do have three teen kids; so I guess it has been."

"As if we can't keep track using our birthdays," Ginny reminded him with a smile as she leaned closer to him so she could have a good view of Al too. "Hi, Al. Did you want to talk with us about your granparents? We've only been here for about five minutes; so we haven't really started in on that yet."

Al smiled softly at his parents. "We can do that, but if you didn't find them yet; I put two little gifts in your bag yesterday – a couple of foil-wrapped chocolates."

"You did?" Ginny asked in surprise. "How'd you manage that without me noticing?"

"I can use magic in Hogsmeade," he reminded her.

"So what are they? A couple of your semi-famous memory treats – or did you go with tricks because of the holiday?"

Al laughed. "I thought about both,' he admitted; "but the trick today is that they're just normal chocolates. If you're looking for happy memories to help out with the anniversary; go out and get some with Malorie and your grandchildren. I can't possibly top the fun you'll get to keep having while watching twin versions of Grandma Lily grow up right in front of your eyes."

"Maybe not," Ginny agreed; "but the chocolates help anyway – and the thoughts and love."

"I've wondered about Grandpa James for that over the past couple of months," Al admitted. "He must have gone through some kind of transformation here at Hogwarts too, since all of the stories I've ever been told suggest that he went from being maybe more than a bit like James to a Wizard that was someone Grandma could love with all of her heart; but we really don't know how or why that happened."

"We don't," Harry agreed. "I'm not sure there's a comparison; since you're trying to change from good to extra-good."

"I'd actually suggest that the comparison is more-true for Gwendolyn," Ginny told them. "Your grandmother's love and kindness is likely what changed your grandfather – just as Gwendolyn is a better person with you than without."

Al grinned at them. "So if we run with that; you and Dad are both best together and the opposite apart?"

Harry and Ginny both laughed. "That is absolutely-true," Ginny assured him. "Gwendolyn's good for you too, Al – just not in the same way."

"What you're doing must be rubbing off on us, though; since this anniversary doesn't seem nearly as tough as it felt to me even a little while ago," Harry told him – "so thank-you for helping me out with getting through today."

"We're also going to Malorie's next and making breakfast for her while getting Jaimie and Lorie to help us too," Ginny advised Al. "Let's get on with the stories next. It's a bit chilly out here this morning; so I think that your grandparents will understand if we move this little visit with them right along."

They did that, though Al mostly listened to those stories again; and he ended the chat early-enough that his parents could wrap up that visit on their own. He still had lots of time after that before breakfast, so he had some Halloween-themed magical play time; and then he headed for the Great Hall. There was some jokes and razzing that he had to deal with while having that meal because of his end-of-dance horse-play, but James and Ollie were late for breakfast again, so most of that was fun; and even Gwendolyn, Rose, and Lily couldn't resist teasing him about it. After breakfast, he went on to spend a lot of his day helping to make Halloween a bit happier and safer for his fellow students. He spent some time with Gwendolyn too when she could get together with him, but he also split the rest of the morning and afternoon between the Room of Requirements, the library, and just wandering around the school helping out wherever he sensed he was needed most while continuing his mission at self-improvement.

The Halloween-themed fun was in full swing all day, and nearly-everyone had fun with that, but Al did continue to do what he could to keep the truly-nasty pranks and ambushes from going off – even though that didn't help those pranksters to have fun or be happy at the expense of their would-be victims. He couldn't stop everything no matter how much he wanted to, but he tried his best; and had to be content with that effort. Lunch in the Great Hall wasn't anything special except for some appropriately-colored food and drinks; but they had a bigger meal at dinner that was about half-way between normal Sunday night fare and one of the feasts.

Al had been looking forward to that meal all day with some happy anticipation; and he had fun as he enjoyed the food and fun with Rose and their nearest tablemates. He was most-excited because he was doing his own little Halloween surprise for his fellow Hogwarts students, but he still waited patiently until dessert was served befor springing it on everyone. He pretended not to be anywhere near the first to notice when his Halloween treats began to fly into the Great Hall; but it wasn't long before everyone in the room began to take notice.

"What in Merlin's name is going on?" Rose demanded; drawing Al's attention to the bats that were flying in from the entrance hall by the dozens now and joining the small swarm of them flapping around.

The lights in the hall were low for the spooky effects, but the bats could be seen easily-enough because they had a glowing stone of some sort on their chests. As more and more of them joined the fray overhead; the glowing became a dancing pattern in the darkness that was a bit mesmerizing and beautiful – even for the Wizard making it all happen.

"You're doing this!" Rose leaned in and whispered into his ear; and he turned and grinned at her.

"Happy Halloween," he whispered back before returning his attention to making sure the little show continued as planned.

He had the bats – hundreds of them – fly around for a while; and then, just as they'd arrived; they began to land on the tables in front of the Professors and students – seemingly at random.

"Happy Halloween – now bite me!" each bat said – their final act as animated creatures before they turned into small chocolate bats with a candy embedded into their chests.

Those best wishes and taunts weren't individually-loud, but it created a cacophony in the room – particularly as the laughter from the teens and tweens was added to the mix. There were enough bats for everyone; one landed in front of each student or Professor; and there were only a few extra at the very end – and they flew off in search of the Witch or Wizard they'd been charmed to seek out. Al played along as his bat arrived and taunted him; and didn't hesitate to pick it up and take a bite out of it. There had been some reluctance for actually doing as the bats had told them at first, but by then; enough of the teens around them had taken the risk for everyone to know that the chocolate and candy treats didn't come with any final tricks.

"Well-done, you," Rose told him in another whisper. "You're making progress – apparently in a lot of ways!"

Al smiled and shrugged. "I am really happy tonight," he offered. Something caught his mental attention for a moment; and he laughed – and then needed to lean in and explain why to Rose. "James is pretending to not take credit for the bats while doing exactly that." He laughed again at Rose's reaction. "I really do find that funny – though he won't if anyone calls him out on it and he can't make another one to prove it."

"There isn't a delayed-reaction cheering charm or something in those chocolates, is there?" Cora asked from across the table. "Maybe I've chosen well to wait before eating mine."

"Al's still giddy over Gwendolyn deciding to wear that ring he gave her when he tried to ask her to the dance and she blasted him," Rose suggested. "The bats are delicious; and don't seem to have any tricks built into them."

Her supposed explanation for Al's happiness sent the girls around them off on a chat about that bit of gossip and other new stories from the dance; and Al went on to enjoy his dessert choices before going to meet up with Gwendolyn and heading for their study classroom. They couldn't just do their normal family fun night because she still had assignments to get done. Rose, Susannah, Ray, Cyndia, and a few others joine them – and Lily and Jonah – for the evening; they studied until Gwendolyn, Rose, Ray, and Susannah needed to move on to their scheduled Prefect duties an hour or so before curfew; and Al had Lily and Jonah with him for the visit to the Owlery to see Winter and Blizzard – and then send Winter with her weekly Owl Posts. Gwendolyn again met up with them outside of Ravenclaw tower when Lily walked Jonah home; shared her own bonus goodnight hug and kiss with Al; and then he walked back to Gryffindor tower with Lily while she went out on curfew patrol.

Al didn't go right up to his dorm room once they were 'home' because he did a little round of visits with cousins and a few other friends first – and then ended up doing a bit of tutoring along the way. Roxanne and her friends were happy for a bit of help with a Transfiguration assignment they were having issues with; and a trio of firsties including Nina Madley appreciated the walk-by hints he offered after sensing their confusion with the assignment they were trying to work through before going to bed too. When he did go up to his room, he wasn't alone – and had roommates trying to get their weekend revision done too – in a quieter place than the common room. He got ready for bed first; helped them out for nearly an hour; and then once again wrapped up his night – and the month – with good night mirror messages with Gwendolyn before turning out his bedside light and crashing into nap mode after what had proved to be his best-ever-so-far Halloween!

He had some hints about what to expect in the weeks ahead as senior team Quidditch took center stage at Hogwarts – and he wouldn't be a part of that action this season; so many of his fellow students might be surprised to discover that he was still happy and looking forward to those annual weeks of transition from Halloween to Christmas adventures. That wasn't all about going on that journey with Gwendolyn, but that was an important part of why he really did feel so great! His relationships with Gwendolyn, Rose, Lily, and everyone else around him was all important to him, but there was a lot more going on both within and all around him; so what Al was most-excited about was the simple joy he expected to have with every big and small adventure that would be part of their collective, continuing journey!